


late nights and cherry pie

by sweaters (cuimhl)



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Abroad, College, Insomnia, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-11 22:19:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 25,968
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5643913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cuimhl/pseuds/sweaters
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Like there’s anything worth checking out,” Kei mutters. “Your whole body screams lean cat physique.”</p><p>Kuroo’s smile widens and he leans forward a little, dark hair flopping over his forehead. “So you were looking,” he teases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. on impulse

First year in university, Tsukishima Kei is just another foreign name among the thousands who flit in and out of the redbrick building. _Main Building_ , he reads dispassionately every morning as he stands between the tall entrance gates, earphones humming something indecipherable into his ears. It could just as well mean _Campus_ or _Gymnasium_ or _Hell_ , and he wouldn’t blink an eye. Every day feels like the first, when all the world falls away into white noise and colour blurs, and Kei wonders if he’s walking himself into a prison instead of what should be enlightened liberation.

Life away from home has turned out to be surprisingly difficult, though having never had such an experience before, Kei isn’t sure why he ever thought it could be easy. The language buzzes around him like the inescapable sound of traffic, and he can choose to listen, or he can choose to push it behind him. It takes more effort to understand the flat pronunciation of the English language, because he’s always thought that the British had it right in the first place - not that he really minds - and he’s become used to the clipped voice that western actors and actresses used. Yamaguchi would snigger when they huddled together in his bedroom, trying to improve their fluency in the foreign language, calling him out indirectly for being a snob. The memory is harder to swallow than it might have been before; Kei misses him. Sort of. They still call every weekend, right after he finishes the one with his mother, but the sound of static encasing a familiar voice hundreds of miles away is more distancing than he thought. There is so much that he hasn’t anticipated.

When he checks his phone, the japanese is familiar and it’s home, but home is so far away that it’s not worth worrying about anymore. Kei unlocks it now, the time swimming before his eyes in digitalised white, and he’s early. He pockets his phone and turns up the volume on his headphones, ducking his head as he walks into the huge building. It’s still disconcerting when gold-crowned heads and brunettes turn and it’s not the flat-bridged nose he’s gotten used to, rather some royal, angular bone structure. People look at him and expect him to start spurting pure, unadulterated english, but he can’t live up to their expectations. Sorry.

The day passes at a snail’s pace, crawling minutes and prolonged hours as voices wash over him. He’s tired during the day, again, even though he forced himself into bed at 9pm the night before. Unfortunately, it was also a night of much tossing and turning. Kei finds his head nodding, and he fiddles with his pencil case for something to do, sips some water, looks around at the other students in the lecture hall. He’s majoring in Law, and it’s unfolding into quite the linguistic nightmare. At night, the tiny black scrawl of letters skitter through his mind like lost ants.

He closes his eyes at break time, sun kissing him dizzy on the grass outside, and when he opens them again - properly opens them - a white-whiskered man is droning on about Herodotus or telephase or maybe even the Magna Carta. Kei isn’t sure. He casts a glance to his side and reminds himself to borrow notes from his one sort-of friend here. The next time he opens his eyes, and he can’t remember when he closed them, Kei is home in his lonely, cramped apartment. The ceiling twirls starry patterns over his head and, as has become his habit, he begins to list all the assignments and self-set homework he has yet to complete.

He powers up his beaten-down laptop and checks his email, and there’s just one left unread. It’s from his mother, and the first line is _‘Oh, Kei, you wouldn’t believe…’_ He doesn’t have the energy to deal with whatever mind-blowing revelation she’s had. Ah, that’s not fair - she’s trying her best, too.

Kei swallows the urge to talk to himself, a prospect that would have been utterly inconceivable a few weeks ago. Apparently, being alone could get lonesome too. The next thing he checks is Skype, and the leftover vestiges of conversation left over from a detailed chat with Yamaguchi two nights before.

_[15/03/19, 21:46:03] Yamaguchi Tadashi: what? why?_

_[15/03/19, 21:46:12] Yamaguchi Tadashi: I thought you were coming back for winter break?_

_[15/03/19, 22:15:07] Tsukishima Kei: change of plans._

His fingers itch to tack something onto the end of it, perhaps to soften the blow - he’d thought he would be going back for break as well. _No._ Better to leave it as is. Sending his laptop back into its grey-screen slumber, Kei presses his thumb against his solar plexus, frowning. If someone asked him what his worst life choice to date was, it would be going to college overseas. Only his father had seemed pleased right off the bat. Kei didn’t know what he wanted when he made this decision, but now he knows for sure that given a second chance, he wouldn’t be here. Regret slows his limbs and for the second time in the same week, he closes his eyes and sleeps instead of working.

When he wakes, the curtains are still undrawn and sunset has just given way to greying darkness. Kei sits up slowly, shoulder cold from where his shirt collar slipped down, and realises that his headphones are still hugging his neck and are pounding quietly with music. He curses quietly, plugs in the charger on his phone, and rifles through his bag for something to eat. It’s gone 8pm, apparently, and the best thing is he has nothing urgently due. Or maybe that’s the worse thing, Kei realises, because he has absolutely no desire to do anything; only stress could move his muscles in the direction of his textbooks.

Anyhow, he unwraps an energy bar and runs through his options. Graciously and slightly reluctantly, his parents have paid for a complex where he has his own kitchen and tiny lounge. His argument was that sometimes work could be so heavy that his schedule would mess itself up without his meaning to and having flatmates or roommates would give him less arm space, but the truth is a foreign place scared him much more than he cared to think about. So did talking to his flatmates, or roommates, or neighbours. Thus, yesterday’s groceries are in the fridge, but his mind is sluggish and there are few recipes that do not include too much exertion.

He isn’t hungry, anyway.

Kei stands up and stretches, and pushes his glasses up. He could research the British legal system, and he could write his Classics paper, but he also could not. What is this? He wonders briefly, trying to recall the mindset of his third year at Karasuno. The only thoughts that resurface are blocking techniques and a strange fire that burned deep in his gut, dying out when they lost the final prefectural tournament. How is it possible that volleyball mattered more to him than studying, or mocking the two idiots?

Pushing harder, he digs up faint feelings for Yamaguchi, for the heft of the ball in his hand when Kageyama tossed to him right, and - Kuroo. The single thought takes him right back to their training camp in his first year, and with that comes a whole slew of volleyball emotions, so Kei fights it down.

It’s easy to see that getting into a law course overseas was not high on his priority list. However, it was always there at the back of his mind - Kei smiles grimly at the acknowledgment and slumps back down on his bed, bending down to pull an exercise book and two heavy folders from his bag, before setting them on the mattress. It bounces slightly at the impact, and Kei suddenly notices how hard he is breathing from the simple movement. Well, he’s out of shape.

The light that filters through from his window is indigo and pearly with moonlight. Streetlights blink on, one by one, and hidden behind a few tall buildings in the distance are the glimmering colours from the city centre. He falls back on his bed, head comfortably cushioned in his pillow, and he falls asleep.

Nothing is as it should be. His phone lights up with a text, and outside, the sky grows dimmer and distances collapse in smudges of black and grey. Back home, his parents are under the impression that he’s working himself to the bone, and sometimes even Daichi calls him out of concern. As he sleeps, he dreams, and Kei dreams of crows as black as ink and hair like all of fanta’s dreams realised; he dreams of parquet courts, the slip-slide and squeak of shoes over white lines, the smell of air salonpas. Instead of his lecturers and bright-eyed classmates, he’s sitting in a classroom with everyone he’s ever known back home, studying volleyball maneuvers with an open maths textbook on the side.

When he wakes to a darkness heavy like stormy seas overcast, nothing lingers but the guilty shimmer of not having done what he should have done. Kei stifles a yawn and stands, barely awake enough to be surprised that it’s almost midnight and that he’s done absolutely nothing all evening. He feels glad enough to have caught up on sleep, but it leaves him drowsily uncomfortable with a head full of cotton.

There are a few things he should do, and plenty that he shouldn’t. For the umpteenth time, Kei picks the latter option. He shrugs on a sweater and changes into more comfortable shoes, tucks his wallet into his pocket and leaves his phone still charging. The door locks behind him with a click and he’s out in the hallway, thoughts illegible in the churning of his mind.

He is halfway across the road when the enormity of his impulsiveness registers. Kei is not impulsive. He is calculating, prepared, calm and collected and impertinently antagonistic; he is many things but he is not impulsive. Is he high on something? Kei thinks back to the past few days, and decides that’s completely out of the question. He makes it a point to avoid all sorts of student gatherings and shifty spaces, and surely his senses are good enough to detect the odd smell of something illicit being slipped into his foods. At least, he thinks that must be true. No coffee lately, either; the bitterness the first time was enough to put him off for the rest of his life. He hasn’t been drunk, nor has he ever smoked, so. Something is up.

By this time, he’s safely across the road on the pedestrian path, and his pace picks up without him really meaning it to. On second thought, it’s probably not a bad idea - he could use the exercise. Kei breaks into a jog and heads for the train station, drawn to the blinking, starlit metropolis a few dozen miles away. He doesn’t bother to pull his headphones over his head, nor are they connected to anything; he stares straight ahead and lets himself grow sleepy with every step. Gently, his mind retreats behind the shell of his body and he loses himself in the physicality of his existence.

Kei catches the next train into the city from his lonely, blue-lit station platform. A few breaths later, the train arrives in its thundering glory. Its belly is devoid of passengers except for the two other people who have chosen to brave the night - one man in his thirties, reading a thick book, and a teenage girl all dressed up in the gothic fashion.

His carriage is completely empty, and it’s lit with the kind of headachey white light that is reminiscent of insects climbing over flickering lightbulbs, or maybe of hospital waiting rooms that are too bright to banish the demons that come as Death’s wake. Kei sits and hums a tune to himself under his breath, counting the stops until he enters the jurisdiction of Zone 1, then the CBD.

When the train pulls into a platform bathed in breathy orange, Kei dismounts at a run and jogs up the stairs, through the station, out onto the street. Minutes later, or maybe it’s been half an hour, or an hour, Kei is swimming like a lost goldfish in the warped glass bowl of a world staring back at him, poor inebriated creature unable to slip away from prying eyes. He’s intoxicated by the neon and fluorescent lights that glitter and sparkle and do all things dazzling, drunk on night howls and the pounding thrum of his footsteps, giddy with each passing car and the spiralling life that exists in such a concentrated place.

Still, he runs, even steps coinciding with his heartbeat. It’s familiar and a consolation in the world that has suddenly slipped even further over the edge of his comfort zone. He thinks of the Greeks, suddenly, of Ancient Greece and the importance placed on losing the self. Kei wonders absently if this is the fulfillment the philosophers and books spoke of - drunk to his heels on something that is not alcohol or caffeine or illicit substances, alive but dead at the same time. It’s like he’s on the brink of something, something new and old and maybe even a world in between. It couldn’t be. If this bliss they mentioned was as satisfying as they thought, it couldn’t be this... _mess_. Tsukishima Kei is in a mess and he has no idea how he got into it, nor how to get out of it.

For one who has always been on top of things, it’s a frightening prospect to be out of control and losing his grip on the open mouth of the world as it drives away from his grasp, like marrow flowing out of his bones or a world coated in a dome of spit. Kei feels half asleep, but surprisingly clear-headed. He speeds up again, until he is almost running at a sprint, desperate to feel the wind huffing against the bare skin of his sternum as if it is reassuring to his existence. His legs can’t move fast enough, and all he wants is to melt into the night and light, scorched alive by something greater than he is.

He must be mad.

Kei slows down, scuffing the toe of his shoes against the pavement, panting. Around him are skyscrapers and huge pearlescent signs, like _Herald Sun_ or _ANZ_ , and in the distance, the Eureka Tower rises like a thin, indomitable titan above everything else. He turns around in circles, finding himself on the strip of cafes bordering the Yarra River. The night presses all around him like some overprotective lover, shielding its catch under the glow of the stars. Not that he can see any stars, but he imagines that they are there.

Alerted to the presence of other needs by a low growl in his stomach, Kei stumbles into a cheery cafe that seems to be the only one remotely popular - or open - in the ungodly hours of early morning. Thankfully, there is a clock inside as well, reading 1:39. He orders hot chocolate and a pumpkin pasty, cliche as it sounds. As he waits, Kei looks around the small place. It’s softly decorated in light yellows and whites, simply and functionally. There are only two other customers inside, plus one man at the counter, and already the second customer is standing to depart. Which leaves...Kei squints at the man sitting in the corner, by the window, and his heart thuds and leaps into his throat.

Hands shaking as he takes his tray from the counter, after it arrives in steaming glory, Kei finds his feet inevitably drawn to the almost-stranger who is alone in the cafe. The man looks up first, dark hair flopping back - a few strands over his forehead, and the rest in a ridiculous bed-head style that all but stands up in a gravity-defying manner.

Kei thinks of volleyball and nice serve and calloused hands on his wrists, directing him to block this way. It all rushes back into him like a book he once read which has slipped out of his mind for a hiatus, but returns in full force like a tsunami wave. He can almost hear the mosquitoes humming by his ear, and cicadas buzzing outside the gym as people walk past and remind them to pack up. Everything is so close he could lose himself in the nostalgia, only this is infinitely strange to Kei, for he is never _nostalgic_. Never _impulsive_. Never an _insomniac_. Still, this year abroad has brought out strange things in his character that are slightly disarming to admit to when they are put under a microscope.

The man stares at him for a long moment, and Kei is uncomfortably aware of how warm the cafe is. Cold clings to his skin and evaporates under the man’s gaze, and heat crawls across his face as he flushes.

“Well.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ahhh really sorry that this hasn't been edited much! How is it? I mostly wanted to post this because I was afraid I'd drop it otherwise, as there's a lot I'd like to change but am too lazy to.
> 
> I didn't know I liked kurotsuki until I started writing this. BUT it's almost done, so the rest will be up...soon-ish.  
> Also, apologies for the odd setting - I tried to think of a place that the other boys were unlikely to go.  
> Let me know what you think!


	2. pumpkin pasty, cherry pie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Homework versus doing potentially stupid things? Life could be worse.  
> (slightly depressive Tsukki and nightlife tour guide Kuroo)

Kei’s voice comes out in a croak from disuse, having not spoken a word since leaving campus - probably before that, too, but most notably in this space of time. Kuroo has the gall to laugh at him, a snorting, uncharacteristic laugh that does not remind Kei of cats as much as everything else does. 

“Yeah, well. This is sort of a surprise.” He hides a second chuckle behind his glass, filled with something milky white. He holds his gaze and Kei frowns, not wanting to be the first to look away, but not wanting to continue the stare for much longer. At last he does capitulate, and he sees Kuroo smirk in his peripheral.

“I heard you were here for college, but I couldn’t be sure. My mother was very vague on the details.”

It doesn’t really add up, so Kei asks the only question he can think of. “Your mother? Details?”

Kuroo looks at him curiously, “I thought you knew. Karasuno was organising some kind of alumni portfolio, and your mother happened to have a conversation with mine when Nekoma was invited.”

Kei recalls the unread email in his inbox, and wishes he had read it. “Sure,” he replies a beat later, and makes to walk away, deciding that it’s well enough to leave it there. He’s not sure what else is left to say. Catch up? It’s been too long and Kei isn’t sure if ‘friends’ is a good fit. The laugh dying from his voice, Kuroo calls him back. “Hey, take a seat,” he gestures to the empty chair across from him.

Kei slides into it reluctantly, and fumbles with the pumpkin pasty on his plate. It vomits crumbs over his fingertips and he suddenly feels inexplicably clumsy, all the while aware of Kuroo’s feline grin eating into his skin.

“Tsukishima Kei,” he states, infuriatingly calm. Kei nods once, holding his composure as he bites into the pasty and falls for the hot filling inside. Kuroo grins as though he can see his instant infatuation with the food, taking another sip of whatever-the-hell he’s drinking. When he finishes chewing, Kei analyses his planned response, hoping that it will be both a good offense, as well as a sturdy enough defense. 

“So, you’re not going to start with the _ohoho_ business?”

On second thought, that’s something really dumb to say. Kei hides his embarrassment behind his next bite, but if it’s even possible, Kuroo’s smile widens. “I didn’t think it was a good time,” he replies offhandedly, and leans forward in his chair. He twines his fingers over the tabletop, fingertips overstretching the imaginary border drawn through the middle of the table. He’s encroaching into Kei’s space, and he knows it. Who could have thought that, after seeing him about once a year for two years and not at all for another half, he could be so aggravated just by the sight of him?

“What are you doing here, down under, Tsukishima?” Kuroo’s question is surprisingly tame, and Kei shrugs, “Law major at Melbourne. How about you?”

The middle-blocker - for he has just been _the middle-blocker_ to Kei in all the memories he can recall - raises a brow, but doesn’t comment. “I’m doing third-year business, also at Melbourne. Can’t believe I’ve never seen you around before.”

Their conversation deteriorates into casual, old-friend small talk. It’s familiar territory that Kei can handle, despite still mentally reeling a little from the encounter. 

He finishes his hot chocolate in a gulp as it turns cold, and Kuroo points out his milk moustache with an unnecessary guffaw. It’s strangely easy to sink down into this companionable banter, and Kei hasn’t let himself notice until now, just how much he feels at unease in Australia. Because, well, he is generally always capable - what did it matter that he’d be far across the sea from his home of nineteen years? The Karasuno send-off was appropriately boorish that he’d thought it was a small blessing to be away from them all, at least temporarily, but he couldn’t deny he’d fought down a little choke in his throat.

“So,” Kuroo leans back now, and Kei gets the feeling that he’s working himself up to ask a prying, private little query. “Why are you here in Melbourne, when you could have made it in any big school in Japan?”

Ah. Well. That, he doesn’t really know why. Kei’s lived much of his life following in his brother’s footsteps like a starstruck fan, and the rest of his measly years by trying to forge a path for himself that did not include irritating people and distracting passions. Unfortunately, that part of his plans went a little awry. 

Kuroo waits for his reply, expression sobering to something that almost dislodges the permanent bezoar in Kei’s chest - almost. He catches himself at the last moment, gladly, because a chance meeting before dawn in some out-of-the-way cafe does not constitute any form of friendship that deserves honest admissions like the one that clogs up his airway every time it appears.

Things like _I’m scared_ , or _I’m lonely_ , or _I’m not entirely sure why I’m alive_. Kei swallows, albeit with a little more difficulty than before, and flicks his gaze briefly to the digital clock over the counter. 2:03. Somehow, he’s spent more time here than he’d thought - what had he thought? A five-minute chat? Ten minutes? Kuroo follows his glance and shrugs, as though he can read his mind. Kei thinks, privately, that he probably can in his own creepy way.

“I thought the experience abroad would be good,” he lies, and it’s easy. It’s also partly true. But, as he’s heard somewhere before, half a truth is not a truth, and therefore it is also partly lie.

Between them, they drift into silence, but it’s not the awkward sort. Kei lapses into a state between full wakefulness and being asleep, thinking about his long trip home and groaning internally. Really, this was such a bad idea. The train trip alone will take him just under an hour, and he’s never been out at this time of night before - to add to his misery, he left his phone at home and thus cannot check train times online. None of this passes through his face, and when he kicks himself back into responsiveness, Kuroo is wearing a similarly semi-present expression.

_2:23._

Kuroo stands, and smiles slightly. “I’m going to head off home, which brings me to my next question: why are you out here at this time?”

This reminds Kei of another splice of information that he has gathered through hearsay, which dictates that the mind often lowers inhibitions when it is tired, in the honest way. Instantly, his mouth clamps down on a reply that must have been going to be embarrassing, at least if he were properly awake, and he says, “I couldn’t sleep.”

That’s mostly true, and his concentration flags when he attempts to figure out why it is only mostly true, and not completely. He might be more tired than he thought. Kuroo saunters to the counter and offers a tip, and the cashier looks at him with a half-asleep gaze himself. Standing, Kei also makes his over, curious. “Why did you do that?” he asks before he can stop himself, and Kuroo sighs. “Mother did’na teach you manners?” he deadpans, before breaking into another dry smile.

He punches Kei gently in the upper arm, “Are you awake?” Kei stretches and tries to yawn, but nothing comes out. The light sharpens and the darkness grows a little less smoky, so he nods. “Good,” Kuroo decides, “Come with me.”

He’s close to responding snarkily with “Don’t order me around,” but he bites it back and trails Kuroo outside. There is no place he wouldn’t trade his apartment for right now, so it could be interesting to see what his senior is planning to do. 

_He’s not my upperclassman anymore_ , Kei reminds himself, but for someone as insolent as he is, he feels uncharacteristically respectful towards Kuroo. 

They walk by the bank of the Yarra for a few minutes without talking, and it’s a simple matter to fall into the silence that seems to come much easier to them than making conversation. Kuroo breaks it when he skips a pebble over the rippling water, and Kei follows suit. His plops down with a thunk, eliciting a surprised laugh from the other. 

Even after that, they don’t talk much. Since arriving in Australia with its notorious boxing kangaroos and slothful koalas, Kei has had little time to go sight-seeing. It’s just such a typical and undignified activity, he justifies his decision to himself, and in the summer when everything is apparently fine and dandy, it’s all too hot. This doesn’t really count as sightseeing, but Kuroo wanders through the gardens and long streets as though he knows it all like the back of his hand - which he probably does, having been here for two years longer than Kei has. 

“Swanston Street,” he points, “Russel Street, Collins Street, Bourke Street.” This one has shops, this one is high-end, this one has great restaurants; take the tram or the train or walk. Kei grows light-headed with the swarm of facts in his current state, but it’s nice enough to let the words wash over him. He wouldn’t admit it aloud, but Kuroo’s voice is nice when he isn’t being an ass.

Which is when? _Now._

By some unspoken agreement, they don’t mention sleep, school or work. They take the odd hours as they present themselves, listening to the clack of their footsteps instead of counting each passing second. Kei is beginning to wonder at the point of this when they arrive at the foot of a tall building, full of darkened windows overhead. “And this,” Kuroo makes a small ta-daa gesture with his hands, “Is where I am staying.”

It must cost a lot, Kei muses, but it looks fine enough. “Why do I care?” he asks in his forever cold voice, and he realises for the first time that it doesn’t convey the emotions inside of him. It’s always been enough just to keep his thoughts to himself and talk when talked to, but now he wonders if it would be so hard just to push a little more emotion out. It’d be strange, sure, but doable.

“Because it’s late,” Kuroo answers, turning his head to look for something in the depths of his coat pocket, “And you’re going to stay over instead of going home.”

This wakes Kei up if nothing will. “Are you mad?” he demands, hands flying out of his pockets and clashing with his headphones. “All my books are at home, I can’t very well go to classes without them. Also, it’s not like I know you well. It’s not something for you to decide.”

He feels a little unnecessarily outraged, but his previous train of thought has bled into his actions. It’s what he’s feeling, he supposes, even though if he’d kept it all bottled up a little better, he’d probably be joking instead.

Kuroo looks unperturbed. “I know you only have one class tomorrow, and that’s in the afternoon. You can go home in the morning.” He unearths a key with a flourish, and begins to fiddle with the input code by the door. “Anyway, what kind of senpai would I be if I could let my dear underclassman go home when the trains aren’t running, in this bitterly cold night, alone? My boy, you could get mugged.”

Too lost for words to come up with a smart response, Kei kicks him. “So you already knew I was going to Melbourne,” he accuses, before dropping his voice back into monotone. “Creepy stalker, what else do you know about me?”

“Nothing else,” Kuroo laughs, and pushes the door open. “Ladies first.”

“I said I’m going home,” Kei maintains, forcing a playful smile onto his face. Forget the emotions and deal with that another day. “Bye, Kuroo-san, it was nice to see you.”

Kuroo doesn’t make a move to stop him, but when he is five steps away, he calls after him. “What are you going to do now? I know you’re not going home; if you’re like me, you just can’t sleep. You’re only going to torment yourself more by wandering around here aimlessly, when you could be doing work instead.”

It’s 3:28 and Kei could count the number of cars that he’s seen in the past half hour on one hand. It also happens to be true that he doesn’t know where he is right know, though he made an effort to remember the twists and turns on the way here, and also that he doesn’t know how exactly to make it back to the train station let alone his own flat right now. Nor does he think he wants to.

“What are you going to do if I go inside?” he asks cautiously, and Kuroo tips his head to one side. “I’m not a psycho murderer,” he offers, but his sly grin is insinuating otherwise. “I could give you food-poisoning or steal your law knowledge, but I’m not going to do that. No,” he looks almost wistful, “I’m going to take you to the best pie place I know in the city.”

“At this hour?” Kei scoffs, and Kuroo shakes his head like it’s some big sin to be a disbeliever of pie places. 

“It’s open for all the insomniacs and all-nighter pullers, mostly med students,” he says as if that explains everything. What doesn’t make sense to Kei is how a city could be so overly populated with insomniacs.

He considers making a gamble with public transport to get home, with his pride intact, and then considers following Kuroo to this insomniac pie bar and maybe figuring out why he came out in the first place.

His logic would only make sense to a bunch of muscle-heads like the two Karasuno idiots, but Kei decides it’s kind of a no-brainer. Homework versus doing dumb things? Life could be worse.

Conceding with a reluctant nod, he watches as Kuroo’s face splits into a delighted smile that is more genuine than the ones that have preceded it. He tells him to wait there and clambers up some stairs inside the building, heading for what must be his place. About five minutes later, he reappears in the doorway with a thicker coat on, and a spare one that he holds out to Kei with a watchful smirk.

It’s warm and Kei is cold, so he puts it on. The sweat has long dried off his body, and the furry inside of the coat rubs against his skin in a comforting, insulating way. It also smells of Kuroo, which is odd because he’s been under the impression that Kuroo doesn’t have a smell of his own for some time now. He’s been attributing it to the cat qualities that the other possesses, but the truth is Kuroo just smells like softener and whatever he uses to launder his clothes.

It’s sort of a nice smell.

Kei blinks quickly at Kuroo and away again, glad that the middle-blocker is currently fiddling with the buttons on his coat and has not caught him sniffing his coat or staring. It’s a completely unwelcome thought, and Kei banishes it like he’s exorcising demons.

 _Yamaguchi_ , he tells himself like a mantra, and calls up the freckled face that has slowly become to mean more than friendship. However, his long-time companion is too far away now to have as strong a pull on his emotional state as he did when Kei had been back in Japan.

The memory of their last meeting sours his mood, because it was less than satisfactory and their growing distance was becoming jarringly ostensible - not even physical distance, but some sort of emotional distance. He wants to go home. 

When he looks up again, having turned his attention subconsciously to worrying away at the hem of Kuroo’s coat, said owner of coat is looking at him with that same concerned look that makes his stomach turn over and flip somersaults. 

_You’re too high-strung_ , Kei tries to lecture himself too, but it’s enough of a truth for him to believe it. This wasn’t as great an idea, after all.

Kuroo seems to sense his change and begins to walk out into the night air, back under the pull of faint stars and metropolitan light. “Let’s go,” he announces, and doesn’t give Kei a chance to make his change of mind final before he strides down the concrete path with purposeful steps. 

“Why are you so slow?” he teases, grin a ghostly white under the streetlight a few feet away, and that’s enough to jerk Kei back into motion.

“Who’s slow?” he grumbles, and they fall into step. Kei is gratified to see that even with the horrendous hairdo, Kuroo is still a little shorter than him. When he speeds up his pace, despite not knowing the direction they are headed, Kuroo speeds up too until they are first jogging, then sprinting down the street.

Kuroo points to the right, “That way,” and they cross the road after a cursory sweep of the traffic situation. Only once do they have to stop to let another car pass, and that time Kei almost ran out onto the road in front of it had Kuroo not stopped him with a firm hand.

They make their way into an unobtrusive side street at a walk, breath misting before them. It’s the sort of unfrequented alleyway that drives chills down Kei’s spine despite his being so vertically well-equipped and in decent physical condition. Everything is a little less bright than before, on the bigger street, but Kuroo seems at ease. He walkes smoothly and with little hesitation, much like a cat once again. Kei sometimes wonders if he ever resembles a crow, but then, how is a crow supposed to act?

His gaze strays to the nape of Kuroo’s neck, a metre or two in front of him, then down the man’s back and his legs. Have they grown in their years apart? Kei can’t really tell.

He seizes the thought mid-flight and crushes it in his fist, pulping it into juice. It’s very much not needed in the present circumstances.

“Here,” Kuroo jabs a finger in the direction of a gently-lit cafe on the side of the road, neighbour to two other stores that are also emanating a calm, post-closed light. 

The door jangles open when Kuroo pushes his way inside, and it doesn’t open from inside unless the user gave it a good hard kick. There is no one inside, and even the coffee machine and bench are draped over in canvas.

“It’s closed,” he says before he can stop himself, and Kuroo chuckles. “Observative, that’s what you are,” he answers good-naturedly and forges on into the darker recesses of the store.Then he sticks his nose under the white sheet hanging over the doorway of a room with black and green carpet.

There are the faint sounds of cutlery and a low buzz of voices behind it, and after a moment, Kuroo pushes the curtain aside and they walk into an warmly-lit hallway, through an open door and into a large room with many cushions and tables and people. 

“Kuroo!” They are ambushed by a tall man with white hair, and for a moment, Kei thinks it might be Bokuto, only it isn’t and he breathes a sigh of relief. It’d be weird to discover that the whole volleyball circle has migrated overseas, and he’s the only one left out of the loop. He takes a step back and watches, amused, as the old man envelopes Kuroo in a crushing hug with surprising strength, laughing obnoxiously. He looks part western and part asian, so Kei figures he must be a halfie - and it’s irrelevant, but he’s heard that halfies are usually very good-looking at least in their earlier years. 

The man does seem to have some semblage of once being rather dashing, and he holds himself well. “Come in, come in,” he exclaims in an easygoing, sort of nasal english. “It’s great to see that you’ve brought a friend - who is it? Some nice young man you met in Uni?”

Kuroo smiles and shakes his head. “A friend from Japan, actually; we’ve been at the same university and haven’t run into each other for the whole year.” Kei furrows his brow at the casual way with which this is summarised, and shoots a glance at him, but Kuroo gazes back in that same unnerving way, calm and complacent. 

“Oh, that is great!” the man herds them towards a table in the corner. “What’s your name?” Kei clears his throat and says, quietly, “Tsukishima Kei.” After a fumble of syllables, the man manages to repeat his name - despite butchering his surname - and looks relatively pleased with himself. It goes to show, Kei thinks to himself, just how often Kuroo must have come here for the man to pronounce his name so easily. 

Insomnia has hit him like a bus going at a hundred miles per hour, but apparently it’s been going for much longer in the case of Kuroo. Kei folds his hands in his lap as the two men converse happily, waiting for whatever comes next, and can’t help wondering what has Kuroo so affected that he cannot sleep.

“So, pie for the both of you?” Kuroo nods, and the man swaggers back to his counter, and disappears through another doorway. They wait and Kei sinks into the conversation that laps around him, fading in and out, and he thinks he could fall asleep. Ah, it will be alright. He can sleep tomorrow morning. The day after that will be Saturday, whence he will have to make the obligatory call back home and a second one to Yamaguchi - Kei debates the pros and cons of informing him about this encounter. Somehow, it feels too private to be disclosed and entrusted to a faulty line bridging a grand ocean.

He doesn’t stop, anymore, to wonder at the craziness of this one meeting out of the blue that has sunk roots into his being and grown a sapling. Strange things happen at night, and Kei is inclined to take it as it comes. In the morning, he will be sober and sensible again, and none of this would be even partly conceivable to him - it is much too unplanned. With a slight wince of disgust, he realises it probably also stems from an admiration complex wherein he desires to be admired by another. At home, all is well enough with Yamaguchi, but out here no one gives him a second glance. Is it a separation complex? Company complex? Misattribution of arousal?

Kei scratches the tip of his nail against the table, and imagines splitting the wood apart. His life before this night could have happened a century ago for all the lack of reality lent to it by the credibility of doing things he would not normally do.

The pie arrives, and jerks him out his thoughts. There is only one pie, and Kei looks up at Kuroo before reaching out and drawing a contemplative line through the horizontal middle.

“Let’s not,” Kuroo smiles (he seems to smile all the time and Kei doesn’t understand how) and he picks up a spoon at his side of the table. “Let’s be barbarians for one night, and eat it spoonful by spoonful. What do you say, Tsukki?”

He lets out an inadvertent noise of discomfort at his nickname, but doesn’t comment. Rather, he picks up his own spoon and shrugs, muttering “Thanks for the food,” before digging in.

The filling is mad and bizarre and it leaves Kei wanting more. He has a sweet tooth - something he’s always gone to much pains to hide. Sugar pushes his logic to the side like a wall and offers him the chance to be a little more than what the universe has planned, and the danger of this is the reason he uses to put himself away from the product. However, the pie is even more dangerous, Kei muses, only raising a brow at the first taste.

It has some sort of fruit mince, mixed in with the sour tang of raspberries and the slight sweetness of cooked apple. Cinnamon stings his tongue and the pastry hides a burst of cherry, and it both lasts for forever and doesn’t last long enough. Kei thinks of his kotatsu back home, and a cold winter when Yamaguchi came over bearing a plate of his mother’s apple pie. They ate it on the back deck wrapped in blankets, pretending to be dragons with their steaming breath. Every time after, when Yamaguchi brought the same apple pie throughout the various winters they shared together, they would eat it up in Kei’s room in comfortable silence. He likes to pretend he doesn’t remember the dragon incident, but he really does. It’s a particularly nice memory.

He runs it through his head now, before driving his glance up and noticing Kuroo’s satisfied stare. “I know you like it,” he says smugly, before turning his attention back to his own spoon and eating unselfconsciously.

Softly, slowly, Kei realises that he likes this. He likes that Kuroo doesn’t ask any probing questions, doesn’t doubt his right to living his own life, doesn’t even need a word spoken to tell that things aren’t as they should be but not really caring either way.

“You’re not going to ask me what’s wrong?” he prompts, curious after this revelation. 

“Do you want me to?” 

“Not particularly.”

“Then there’s your answer.” 

“Wow, bedhair,” Kei offers a teasing half-smile, “I had no idea you were quite so considerate.”

Kuroo wipes his mouth with the back of his hand, “I’ve always been a nice guy.”

At this, Kei brings his brows down and huffs a sigh. Eternally incomprehensible; how had he ever thought otherwise? Some brains just didn’t work the same way.

“I have room in my head for many things,” Kuroo replies, nonplussed. “It’s the hair, see? Gives me extra thinking space.”

Without meaning to, Kei spurts out an incredulous laugh. Kuroo tugs at the tip of his dark hair to make it stand taller and straighter, eyes still half-lidded in his perpetual expression of sleepy cat. Kei leans back in his chair and turns his head to the side, snorting into his hand. His bout of laughter dies down, and when he sits back up again, Kuroo is looking at him with a self-satisfied smirk like the tomcat who ate the canary.

Kei finds that he doesn’t really mind it.

_4:57._

Kuroo tells him to put his coat on and they amble out of the room, which is quickly emptying of its customers. They pay the friendly old man at the counter and walk single-file back down the hallway which looks much darker after being in the makeshift cafe for so long. 

“Why doesn’t he rent out a shop along the road?” Kei wonders. “Because he doesn’t need this just for a living,” Kuroo answers. “As he likes to boast to his customers, he caters singularly for those who most need it.”

“Strange life,” Kei mutters to himself as they step out onto the street and he’s hit in the face with a gust of cold air. He imagines that the horizon, which he can see sandwiched between two dark apartment buildings, is beginning to lighten up. It could just as well be a hallucination, though.

He sits in Kuroo’s flat until half past six, drifting in and out of consciousness as silvery blue light begins to drown the blackness of night. Kuroo sees him to the train station and they part ways there, Kei in his own clothes because borrowing another’s coat for too long seemed to make unnecessary allusions to their relationship. 

Which is, he thinks, just acquaintances. He watches as Kuroo begins to pull away from him when the train starts, smiling slightly in his dark overcoat in the amber lighting overhead.

It’s been quite the night. Kei falls asleep before his head hits the pillow, dreaming of Tokyo Towers and volleyball training camp, and the smell of fabric softener.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a confession to make: this has not been edited either.  
> Also, if anyone is interested, this fic was inspired by _Along for the Ride_ by Sarah Dessen.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed it (despite everything I may have overlooked arghh) and let me know what you think!


	3. things that can't be fixed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “You’re surprisingly kind,” Kuroo laughs quietly, and when the door unlocks with a click, he leans his forehead against it without moving. “Do you want to hear a story?”

Kei wakes with a crick in his neck at noon, groggy and bleary-eyed as he cleans his glasses and checks the time.

He dresses for comfort in jeans and a sweater, and pulls out his books to study up before he needs to head out for class. In the next hour and a half, he reads about _habeas corpus_ and Homer, _mens rea_ and Kafka. Without being in full control of his faculties, Kei packs his things and slings his back over his shoulder, jogging to the train station and staring at a blank white wall as the train jolts and jars beneath him over the tracks.

It’s odd, but he feels fine. Refreshed, even. The night before feels like an overly realistic dream in which he did many stupid things, but he doesn’t necessarily regret it.

He makes it through class without falling asleep, without feeling even the faintest tug of fatigue. Despite making a point of looking out for Kuroo’s telltale dark hair for the whole time he is within the city, Kei does not see him. He’s almost beginning to think that he’s dreamed the whole thing up, but he is sure that his mind is stronger than that.

Kei has a theory, and it goes something like this:

 

  1. _the brains of medical students cannot function early in the morning without strong coffee._
  2. _most people are unable to feel intense emotions before at least 9 o’clock in the morning._
  3. _the mind lowers its inhibitions in a state of tiredness;_
  4. _Tsukishima Kei is no exception to the rule._



 

This is how he reasons his decision to stay in the city for the rest of the afternoon, studying in the State Library and catching a few z’s along the way, before going for a late night run. For the sake of clarification, the whole explanation of his decision-making is as below:

 

  1. _all minds have a threshold, and upon reaching it, they are henceforth unable to function at prime level unless action is taken to lower its stress level_
  2. _sexual tension is unfortunately very common for teenagers and young adults_
  3. _misattribution of arousal does not have to escalate in a negative way if it is appropriately controlled_
  4. _the pie from last night is surely the best pie in the world._



 

Enough lists for a lifetime. Kei picks his way through the afternoon throng of students who have been let off from high school, and businessmen and women all hurrying to various hotspots in the city. It would be nice to eat pie again, he thinks a little wistfully, but it would be far better to not have to run into Kuroo on the way. However, it is just as important to recognise the primal instincts of his body as it is to face his fears. If Kuroo is a fear - which he sure as hell shouldn’t be - Kei will face him.

Anyway, he was tired the night before - it led to troublesome decision-making, which also led to a decent conclusion that had no ill repercussions. If he’s more on guard, it would be unlikely for him to find himself dragged across the nine main streets of Melbourne CBD by an old acquaintance he barely knows.

People don’t usually try to get close to him, he justifies it to himself.

Kei takes off running along the straight stretch of road leading from the train station, inhaling the chilly night sky and car fumes, exhaling the fusty smell of books and wood varnish. Darkness closes in around him, and he checks the time at 10pm. He’s unnecessarily antsy, which he attributes to the coming weekend, but really takes its root from the taste of raspberries on his tongue in a room hidden away from prying eyes.

Upon reaching the next junction, Kei gives up on self-denial and turns back the way he came, keeping up a running commentary of street directions. He doesn’t take pride in being particularly geographically adept, but goodness, he can tell two big roads apart.

He’s almost not surprised when Kuroo joins him about two blocks from the pie place, one moment on the other side of the tarmac, the next jogging beside him. “Ohoho,” he grins, teeth bright and familiar. Every other part of him looks different in the dark, as though night skins away the pearly flesh and angular features to leave behind the smoky impression of a spectre. Kei’s eyes wander across the whisper of sharp nose, which he can just make out as his eyes adjust to the new addition in the bleak landscape, over thin lips stretched over a smile and the haze of a taut neck. Kuroo is lithe and lean, but defined in all the right places. He also catches Kei staring and snorts, but he’s looking back unabashedly too.

A moment or two later, Kuroo suddenly picks up the pace - at first Kei doesn’t notice, but eventually the other pulls away and he’s left figuratively choking on the dust. Instantly, a competitive thrill kicks into action and he speeds up too. In gradual increments, they race each other until they’re just about sprinting the final hundred metres to the insomniac cafe.

Kei drinks the air in ragged gasps, alarmed at his body’s reaction to a challenge, but he doesn’t regret it. He’s warmer now, and more awake.

“Who would have thought,” Kuroo huffs a laugh as they catch their breath outside the door, “That Tsukki had a single competitive bone in his body?”

Kei grimaces.

“And to think,” he continues, on a roll now, “That he’s surprisingly slow for a guy with legs as long as those.”

This hits a nerve, and Kei pushes up his glasses coldly. “If you would excuse me, Kuroo- _san_ , I could run another five kilometres at this pace.”

“Do you want to try?”

Heated words. Kei wants to bite them back; he shouldn’t lose himself like this. However, he still has his pride to wear - even if it’s all tattered and holey. “Your call,” he answers flatly, but his body is insisting otherwise. Five kilometres is a big fish to reel in when he’s so unfit.

Kuroo gives him that shit-eating grin, looking every bit like the cheshire cat with disembodied eyes and teeth. “I like that you have a pair, but no thanks. Let’s get fat on the world’s best pie instead.”

Feeling decidedly both insulted and confused, Kei follows him inside.

 

\---

 

Kuroo Tetsurou finds his place in Kei’s new and improved routine - or is it improved? Perhaps it’s regressed. Still, he inserts himself like the missing babushka doll in the middle of everything, and he fits.

Their classes are mismatched and Kei only rarely catches a glimpse of the middle blocker around campus, rarely being maybe once a week. The first time he’s sure that Kuroo hasn’t seen him, but the next time he sneaks a glance, Kuroo meets it like a sweeping magnet.

Sometimes they meet under the shade of the building overhang in the afternoon, and sometimes in the evening. Kuroo is always late to their unspoken arrangement, nor does he ever offer an explanation or apology.

However, once Kei ruts himself into a routine, he lets it carry him along and no bumps can dislodge him from his ride. If the other guy isn’t there, he doesn’t wait. They are more or less friends, but are they more or are they less? It’s beyond clear that they’re not _friends_ in the true meaning of the word.

“Discount there,” Kuroo would say, and they’d take off running in the direction he pointed in. Kei doesn’t bother to ask for details anymore; it’s much easier just to follow along. What would he do instead?

“Your ice-cream is melting,” Kuroo informs him one night before the clocks have struck midnight, listening to their breaths hitch under a sky drowned in grey stormclouds. Nodding, Kei angles his head to lick off the offending drip, but he stops when he feels cold fingers on his own.

He doesn’t dare to move in fear of breaking whatever spell they are under, his head tilted at forty-five degrees with his tongue flicking between his lips just short of the ice-cream. Kuroo stares at him with an unfathomable gaze, dark eyes glittering, hand still on Kei’s.

“I didn’t want you to drop it,” he breathes at last, and Kei wants to call him a liar - loudly. He doesn’t, only nods numbly and turning his attention back to his cone. All of a sudden, the cold treat in the colder night is no longer fun or challenging, and it all seems like such a child’s game. Why did he even go along with it? Frowning, he finishes off the ice-cream in hasty bites, and they don’t speak a word between them for the rest of the night.

The night after that, Kuroo isn’t anywhere to be found. Kei tries to explain away the knot in his chest, but visiting any of their regular haunts does nothing to dislodge it. After knowing company, loneliness is all the more painful. He hunches down outside the pie cafe, not wanting to go inside lest memories be overwritten by the emptiness that fills him now like air in a dried up well. Half a semester has passed, and he’s barely floating on top of all the work - it’s not something he’s used to. Kei blames it on the flush of wildberry still in his system, on the badly-timed caffeine hits, and on Kuroo - but none of them are really his ruin. He is his own disappointment. He is his parents’ and his friends’ disappointment.

In the past two weeks, he’s skipped three morning classes after the hit of insomnia dried up too late and left him passed out on the couch until noon. Kei remembers wanting to pull all-nighters in his younger teenage years, because it was _cool_. Sleep was for the weak, and all that. He’d never once managed it.

Now that every night was an all-nighter, and every day he’d sleep in powernaps scattered throughout the day, it’s kind of lost its glory. There’s really nothing that attractive about being nocturnal, except falling marks, if that’s what girls are into.

He wants to learn how to smoke.

What’s Yamaguchi doing now? The last time he’d heard, his friend was working part-time under his uncle, a furniture removalist, while balancing his medical studies. Doing more than fine, really, but when he talked it was always with that hint of awe in his voice, like _I can’t believe you’re really overseas, that’s way cooler than this_.

Kei touches his fingertips to his lips absently. They kissed once. It was right before he left, and he can still remember the flush on Yamaguchi’s face that preceded tears. The kiss itself was a mad and awkward fumble, more about wanting to leave a mark than actually wanting to kiss. It was also his first one.

He can barely recall how it felt like, to have things to lose.

He stands, then, and catches his phone as it almost falls to the unforgiving pavement. It must be a cruel twist of fate, he figures, when the screen lights up with a new text.

 

_From: unknown number_

_theres a party down the street from my place, the only one with lights on. u coming?_

 

Kei isn’t sure when Kuroo got his number, but he knows it can only be him. He can almost hear the other’s voice through the words, and it sounds dry, as if he hadn’t abandoned a nightly tradition like it meant nothing.

Self-pity isn’t good for health, so Kei pushes it to the side and sighs. He shouldn’t go - parties are dangerous places, more so than dark, deserted streets - and besides, he does have a practice paper to write for his teacher tomorrow. It’s also true that his class is in the afternoon again. Kei’s self-control has officially flown out of the window.

He runs down a familiar set of paths and it takes him ten minutes to get to Kuroo’s flat, and after stopping a moment to look at it, he continues down until he feels the thrum of music vibrating through the concrete, followed by blinking multi-coloured lights.

In front of the party centre, which seems to be an old dance studio of some sort, there are a handful of university students like himself milling around. There’s the distinct sour smell of alcohol pervading the air, melting into the heady scent of perfume. His senses are assailed on all sides by the number of things happening at the same time - bodies this way and that, odd smells and head-pounding pop music that’s been turned too high.

It’s eleven at night, and it looks like the party has been in swing for more than an hour - and plans to last for even longer. Kei pushes his way through the people with a grimace of disgust at sweaty skin and obscene displays, and stands in the doorway of the crowded studio for little over two seconds before he has decided to leave, Kuroo and his stupid student parties be damned.

A hand catches his wrist and he swivels round to a blond girl, clearly drunk, giggling. “Which way are you going?” she asks sweetly, and Kei tries to pry her fingers off his skin, but her grip is firm.

“Home,” he answers her, and she arches a pale eyebrow. “Got a date already?”

“No, please,” he pushes her away with a gentle shove and she stumbles back a few steps into someone else.

“Ah, Tsukki,” Kei turns to see Kuroo carefully maneuvering the girl out of the way and slipping past. “It’s good to see you, buddy. Wasn’t sure if you’d come.”

Kei wrinkles his nose and casts a pointed glance at the bottle in Kuroo’s hand as the girl ambles away. “You’re already drunk,” he says accusingly, and the man sighs. “That I am,” he concedes with wry grin, “But who knew, I really like the taste. _I_ didn’t know I would.”

“Please,” Kei reaches forward to pluck the bottle out of his hand, but Kuroo jerks it away in a surprisingly nimble move. “You should go home before you do something you regret.”

He’s not sure why he feels responsible for Kuroo, but he undoubtedly does. It’s been about three or four months since their first meeting in Australia, and he’s grown to discover that despite being older and more experienced than him, with calculatingly good judgement to rival his (though he already knew this from volleyball), Kuroo is sometimes much like a drunken cat that needs to be taken places and constantly looked after. He doesn’t mean that in the conventional way, like when people describe teenage boys as oversize dogs and such; no, Kuroo is a _drunken_ cat. He wanders about and does amazing things that show up everyone else, and is decidedly responsible and reliable. However, his constant state of mental intoxication allows him to see people to their honest cores, but also disallows him to face his own self. Sometimes this leads to ill-fated attempts at finding himself or pleasing others.

Actually, scratch that; every time that Kei thinks he might have a grasp on Kuroo’s character, he finds that he’s wrong.

“I’ve already drunk-dialed,” Kuroo is saying when Kei resurfaces from his thoughts. “Who?” he asks in exasperation, because there’s nothing else he can do. “Kenma,” he grins lopsidedly, before taking another swig from his bottle. This time he’s unbalanced enough for Kei to snatch it out of his hand, and pour the rest in a nearby gardenbed.

“What did he say?” he asks, for want of something better to do as Kuroo’s eyes follow his movement with dogged persistence. At this, his expression clams up and he looks almost sober. “Nothing much,” he mutters, before lunging forward and throwing his arms over Kei’s shoulders dramatically.

“Oh, Tsukki,” he sighs loudly, “I think he hates me. What am I going to do?”

“Jeez, calm down,” Kei fixes his glasses and tries to push Kuroo back into a standing position, but he’s incredibly heavy (muscles, man! Nothing else) and it doesn’t work. Rather, he ends up leaning back against the wall beside the studio door, so that he no longer has to bear the full weight of Kuroo.

The man shakes his head and it tickle’s Kei’s cheek. “No,” he whispers, “I think I’ve really ruined it. You don’t understand.”

Kei furrows his brow, concerned. “Aren’t you the best of friends? Worry about it when you’re sober, and then work things out. Honestly, you’re not going to get anything fixed by making such a big deal of it now, when you can barely think straight. Let’s get you back to your place.”

Kuroo lets him drag him out of the yard and back down the concrete path, eventually straightening up so that he can walk by himself. He’s silent until they reach the door of his flat, and he punches in the code desolately.

“You’re surprisingly kind,” he laughs quietly, and when the door unlocks with a click, he leans his forehead against it without moving. “Do you want to hear a story?”

“I’ll hear it inside,” Kei answers edgily, wanting to be out of the cold and for Kuroo to maybe fall asleep before he makes admissions he might regret later.

Slowly and sluggishly, they make their way up three flights of stairs and stumble to their respective spots on two adjacent sofas.

“Once upon a time,” Kuroo begins without preamble, “There was a cowardly little kid with black hair that stood straight up and all the neighbourhood kids laughed at it. Only one guy didn’t, and that guy had a dark mop that parted in the middle so I guess he wasn’t really in any position to talk. But it made an impression on me.”

Kei wonders if he’s been bottling up this story for a long time. The words flow easily, and he paints a masterful picture of a regular childhood with regular happenings. He imagines a young Kuroo and Kenma, and it’s not so hard.

“Anyway, mop-hair could handle himself really well, even though he liked the weirdest things and never had anything to do with anyone at school. He’d just sit in the corner of the classroom during every break, playing games on a console. Stick-hair really wanted to pay him back for that impression he’d made, because it was incredibly important to him that mop-hair accept more than just a standard thank-you, because he’d played an integral part of stick-hair’s childhood that was worth more than words.”

The room is dark, curtains undrawn with a sliver of moonlight peeking through the corner of the window. Everything else is gray fog, and Kei feels underwater, as though distances are warped and if he reached out now, he might touch the boy sitting in front of him, or he might run into something else entirely. A silence hangs on for too long, and he’s about to drift off asleep despite trying not to, when Kuroo continues the story.

“One day, stick-hair saw a bunch of boys making fun of mop-hair for something or other, so he figured his time had come. He made a brave stand and chased the others away, because he was no longer that same cowardly little wheel spoke as he’d once been. Mop-hair accepted him under his wing as a friend, his first true friend, and they were henceforth inseparable. Stick-hair got into volleyball, mop-hair followed, stick-hair went to high school, mop-hair followed, and their friendship blossomed to the sort where words weren’t needed to explain each other’s moods. That’s how,” Kuroo pauses, and when he resumes speaking, his voice cracks a little. “That’s how mop-hair was the first to know that stick-hair didn’t look at girls the same way as other boys. That’s how he indulged stick-hair’s first kiss, first everything, and they continued on in that same parallel line and nothing really changed.”

 _Ah._ Kei isn’t really surprised by this tidbit of information, but is there more to it? There must be - he wonders what went wrong. “Then?” he prompts quietly, and Kuroo shrugs. “Then, stick-hair freaked out because it seemed totally wrong and when he got over that, he freaked out again wondering how to keep someone like mop-hair interested, and when mop-hair helped him get over that, he was already overseas. Then they had a bunch of communication problems and stick-hair is no longer sure of where they stand in terms of relations. Friends? More? Less? Mop-hair can be unforthcoming, which is a redeeming trait of his that stick-hair has always admired, but it’s also terrifying. The end.”

“You’re drunk,” Kei breaks the quiet, trying to assert control on himself. He’s bewildered by the cocktail of emotions running through him now - concern, hope, guilt. It’s as though he’s taken the confession of sexuality to be an all-clear for him to make a move, because he realises now, he wants to make a move.

 _Yamaguchi._ It does nothing to bring him back to earth, because Kei is floating, untethered by any strings in this foreign country and the only breath of home is Kuroo with his snide grin, his firecracker snigger, his trademark bedhair. Misattribution of arousal it is.

“I am drunk,” Kuroo nods to himself as though pleased by this revelation, before shifting forward in his seat. “Perhaps that is why I am tempted to move towards you now.”

Kei cracks on a series of unattractive gasps, laughter. “Is that how you pick up guys?” he asks, “Get drunk and play it off as drunken behaviour?”

Kuroo stiffens and twists his hand in the air jerkily. “No,” he says haughtily, before raising a brow. “Only for you.”

“Gross.” Kei snorts, leaning back in his seat.

The space between them suddenly feels unbearably small, and he’s drawn to every movement that Kuroo makes. He feels like prey, but like some kind of masochistic prey. Kuroo, who has integrated himself into every fibre of Kei’s life with ease, is taking up too much headspace and Kei half wants to push him out, half wants to let him in. Perhaps it’s the tension of not knowing how far this will go that has drawn him to the late night rendezvous and sharing hot pie and running a madcap insomniac adventure over a city stretched over night’s cutting table, dissecting every passing increment of time.

“Can I kiss you?”

“You’re drunk,” Kei repeats, weakly.

“I am,” Kuroo doesn’t break their eye contact. With predatory feline grace, he rises from the chair and fumbles his way through the dark to Kei, who is uncomfortably aware of his heart thundering in his chest.

“Can I kiss you?” he asks again, and this time Kei can feel hot breath over his skin, can smell alcohol and mint twined together.

_Yamaguchi Yamaguchi Yamaguchi Yamaguchi -_

“Yes,” he whispers, and their lips meet in a room asphyxiated by night-time and an odd cinquillo beat whistling through bone and vibrating under skin, slipping in quicksand with broken half-promises and a little shred of new hope.

Kuroo doesn’t move, initially, and Kei grows used to the press of his lips against his own. Then he does move, and all he has time for is a nervous gasp before Kuroo’s tongue swipes over his bottom lip and he loses himself in his heart and his head, disconnected from his body.

Not moments after, Kuroo pulls away, eyes like two bright stars to complement the crescent moon of his smirk.

“You’re blushing,” he comments, and Kei fights not to slap his hands against his face to see if it’s true.

“It’s too dark to see,” he shoots back, struggling to keep his voice even.

“You wouldn’t blush if this were in broad daylight?”

“You’re amazingly in control of your senses despite being inebriated.”

“Well,” Kuroo leans back and fiddles with his hair and it almost feels normal again. “I did tell you that I had extra space in my head.”

Kei shakes his head with a faint smile, but apart from that, he’s not at all sure what expression is on his face.

Carefully, Kuroo draws away as though the air is delicate to the touch, and paces twice before stopping in front of the window. He doesn’t look at all like someone who just decided to kiss another guy while drunk. Kei isn’t certain how he’s supposed to feel - gratified that Kuroo had some sort of feelings for him? Disgusted that it was a drunken act? Sad that he wasn’t sober? Glad that it could all be explained away? He stands up and clears his throat.

“I’d better go,” he says quietly, and Kuroo turns to look at him. “Sure,” the man sways a little on his feet as he makes his way over and sees his guest to the door. “Sure,” he echoes, and waves awkwardly. “Bye, bedhair.”

It seems to take him twice as long to make it home, and all the while Kei is trapped in a tug of war with one end begging him to go home and cut all ties with the world, while the other urges him to find a human connection. It’s all terribly, unnecessarily dramatised, and Kei does so dislike drama. He climbs into bed and rolls around to find a comfortable position for what feels like hours, trying to still his thoughts. When sleep takes him away, he barely realises.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it always ends when he sleeps! I'm just following the breaks in the document. I hope you enjoyed it, and let me know what you think!


	4. defense mechanism

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They part at the train station, and Kuroo doesn’t ask for clarification as to their relationship. Still, Kei is certain that he’ll ask eventually, and he will have to answer.

_ [27/5/19, 16:09:32] Tsukishima Kei: this message has been deleted. _

_ [27/5/19, 16:09:56] Tsukishima Kei: this message has been deleted. _

_ [28/5/19, 21:16:43] Tsukishima Kei: this message has been deleted. _   
  


\---   
  


Kei wakes to the buzzing of his phone. Yawning, he realises that someone is calling him, and he answers after a drawn-out grumble. It’s before 10am and he feels like the world is all fluff and wool, and touching anything at all will drive him to sleep again. 

“Hello?”

“Ohohoho, Tsukki.”

A little surprised, he doesn’t speak for a long moment as his mind catches up. “Are you going to tell me that whatever happened the other night you totally regret, because you were intoxicated?”

He can hear Kuroo laugh briefly on the other side. “No, though it’s tempting,” he says through the buzzing background noise. “Sorry I didn’t call earlier; my head was in much too skull-splitting pain to offer you the apology that should accompany some cowardly escape like that. Rather, I have a question, if you’d like to listen.”

“Go for your life,” Kei heaves a long-suffering sigh. Even if Kuroo shows no sign of regret, he feels enough of it already. On the other end, there is no sound but the static for a moment.

“Say,” says Kuroo, sounding further away than he already is, “Do you want to go see a movie this weekend?”

Kei can’t read the emotion in his tone, and can’t quite decipher his feelings either. “Are you asking me on a date?” he inquires slowly, quirking his brow. 

“Yes,” is the answer, and he smiles despite himself.

“No,” Kei replies, trying to sound offhand. “I know you’re smiling over there,” Kuroo announces, “I can imagine your face with its crow-like smirk.” He, on the other hand, sounds utterly nonplussed by the negative answer.

Kei lifts a hand to his lips, trying to smooth its curve. “What the hell does a crow’s smirk look like?” he asks.

“It looks like you. See you Saturday, noon, at the only cinema you know.”

“But I said no,” Kei frowns, and Kuroo hums on the other end. “Well then, it’s not a date, so to speak,” he amends, “Could you meet me there?”

The slightest hint of uncertainty enters his voice, and Kei decides to go for it. What harm can it do? 

“Sure,” he says, and wishes he could see Kuroo’s face.

“Bye then,” is Kuroo’s only response.

Ending the call, he looks around his room and groans. He shouldn’t have agreed - so it’s not exactly a date, but does this mean that he and Kuroo are a thing? Commitment is more like predestined failure; the only thing Kei has ever been truly committed to is volleyball, and even that he’s now left behind for the next stretch of his life. Plus, he doesn’t want to be committed to Kuroo, regardless of their situation.

It’s Thursday, and he doesn’t see Kuroo for the rest of the business week. By Saturday morning, after much deliberation, Kei decides to make it clear straight up that this is nothing like a date. He doesn’t want to be any more involved than their insomnia already forces him to be, and a relationship is not what he wants.

Now clear of the path ahead, Kei marches to the cinema half an hour before noon, dressed to fight off the frigid wind. Winter is almost here, he realises with a start, still adjusting to the odd months here in the southern hemisphere. He’s heard that Melbourne winters are not all that cold, and it doesn’t snow - what a lie. The wind is harsh and icy, and sure, temperatures do not drop as significantly as what he’s used to, but it’s still  _ cold _ . It rains a lot as well, wet and damp and sneaking into his clothes, everything smelling of mould.

He arrives with ten minutes to spare, and Kuroo arrives promptly, on the dot of twelve. “I didn’t know you could be punctual,” Kei remarks, but the man doesn’t crack a smile.

“Cat got your tongue? Oh, wait, you’re the cat.”

“Tsukki.”

They stand a few metres to the side of the cinema, and Kei tilts his head very slightly to the side in a show of listening. Kuroo looks uncharacteristically sombre, which he doesn’t like - it puts him on edge. Kei isn’t used to being approached, and when approached, he’s used to antagonising others until they leave. Kuroo is unaffected by the latter: he has his own slew of annoying comments, and he has thick skin and a slow temper. So. Kei isn’t sure which buttons he can push before something unexpected happens.

Kuroo fidgets uncomfortably, breathing out heavily in a cloud of white mist. “I’m in a relationship with Kenma,” he says flatly.

Kei nods, because he knew that, though it stings a little. “I know.”

“Well,” he hesitates, “I  _ was _ in a relationship with Kenma, but I also happen to be an irredeemable douche who is attracted to you.”

It hits him stronger than it should, to hear the words spoken, but it’s certainly not a shock.

“I tend to have that effect on people,” Kei smiles wryly, wondering where this is going. “So?”

Kuroo tips his head back and lifts his shoulders to his ears, before letting them drop again. “So, I’m wondering if you’re alright with me, even just temporarily, or if you want me to leave and never see me again, or something in between.”

This is said very quickly as if he doesn’t care either which way, but Kei figures he does. He does, too. He also feels at a loss. Kei knows what his head wants, but he’s also frighteningly aware of his heart. 

He thinks about the darkness that envelops the world at night, and the rhythm of their footsteps when they’re together. Then, his mind is drifting to the smell of Kuroo’s fabric softener and the biting scent of cologne, and he doesn’t regret knowing it. Neither does he want to part with it.

“In between,” he says quietly, at length. He wishes it could be any other way, but he does rather likes Kuroo too - he likes how the middle-blocker is shorter than him, and also the way he exudes nonchalance like everything in life is a game, an adventure. More people could afford to have that outlook on things, Kei thinks. If he gave any more reasons, he’d turn into a hopeless, poetic sap.

Anyhow, what else is he supposed to say? Asking for a relationship is like admitting desperation, but he hasn’t been pushed to a point where he doesn’t want to see the guy again, either. Kei lifts a hand to the back of his neck, rubbing it self-consciously. He doesn’t like being cornered.

Still, Kuroo’s spreading smile seems to say that he made a good choice. “I’ll let you stew on that,” he offers, and Kei accepts the way out with a gracious lift of his eyebrows. “For now, let us get on with the date.”

“I thought it wasn’t?”

“Fine, let’s hang out.”

“What movie are we watching?”

“It’s a remake of an oldies black-and-white romance movie. I thought it was appropriate, for as long as you didn’t choose option three.”

“Why, are you going to do the thing where people kiss in the middle of a kiss scene?”

They walk through the doors, and Kuroo flashes a pair of crisp white tickets. “I’m glad you know me so well.”

Kei grumbles something under his breath, and Kuroo asks him to repeat it. “I said, this isn’t a date,” he scowls, but Kuroo smiles at him graciously and takes him by the arm. “Self-denial isn’t healthy,” he says.

“It’s not a date,” Kei repeats, but the words are losing their force.

Halfway through the movie, Kei falls asleep. The movie isn’t good at all - he thrives on sound and music, and the movie has neither of those features to a satisfactory level. Everyone on screen looks like they’re purely acting, overly gesticulative and showy. Kei hates pretentious people and the protagonist is one. After blinking a few times in a half-hearted effort to stay awake, he succumbs.

He wakes to white letters on a black background in scrolling credits, and the warmth of a hard body at his side. It’s just pliant enough for his head to rest comfortably in the crook of Kuroo’s neck, and as his senses return to him, Kei grows aware of a hand resting lightly over his hair.

“You snore a bit,” Kuroo says teasingly, and Kei sits up groggily. There are no people left in the theatre, probably having exited as soon as the credits came up. He turns his head a little to the side, gingerly, and Kuroo is grinning back at him as the lights grow brighter around them.

“Are there cameras in here?” Kei asks curiously, and Kuroo shrugs. “Probably, to make sure that people aren’t filming. But,” he reaches over and hooks a finger over the arm of Kei’s glasses, “Do you want to give them a show?”

Distantly aware that this is probably more of a date than he’d planned, Kei shrugs noncommittally and his gaze drifts to Kuroo’s mouth. When he looks up again, the man is closer, maybe a handspan away from his face. His mind goes blank and the  _ no _ that had risen up into his throat vanishes. 

“Who am I kidding, aren’t cats supposed to swallow up crows, feathers and all?” This is the last thing that Kuroo whispers before he kisses Kei for the second time, gentle for a second before pushing for more. Kei lets him take it, brain all fuzzy with sleep and too many concerns crowding his head at the same time. Heat curls in his belly and he is surprised at himself.

Once again, Kuroo pulls away first, but Kei’s gaze sharpens and he knots his fingers in the front of his shirt, jerking him back in. He doesn’t want the other to always have control, and anyway, he’s not a china doll to be drawn into feather-light touches or something equally as ridiculous.

He presses a kiss to Kuroo’s jaw and relishes in the soft intake of breath, before latching onto his lips and following the line of gasoline slick that ignites between his teeth. Without hesitation, he bites down lightly on Kuroo’s lower lip, fingers fiddling with the hem of his shirt. 

“You kiss,” Kuroo gasps softly, “Nicely.” Kei pushes him firmly backwards until he has him pinned against the arm of his seat. He’s not sure what he’s about to do, when light explodes into the theatre and there is the sound of footsteps on carpet. 

“The cleaner,” Kuroo whispers, eyes half-lidded but still infuriatingly amused. Kei pulls back as though slapped and he stands, quickly, brushing his clothes down and trying for nonchalance. 

He looks back, and the man - young in his twenties, face vaguely studded with acne still - pauses mid-step. “Oh, sorry,” he calls in a squeaky voice, “I thought everyone had left. I’m just here to clean, sorry!”

Kei glowers at him, and Kuroo pops up beside him, kneeling on his chair with his arms wrapped over the backrest. “No worries,” he quips cheerfully, “You weren’t interrupting anything, don’t mind us. We just lost track of time.” He nudges Kei in the side and he flinches, which elicits a quiet laugh.

“We’ll be out before you know it.”

As the boy stares, Kuroo wraps his fingers around Kei’s forearm and drags him out of the theatre. “Sorry about the inconvenience! Bye.” He waves at the cleaner as Kei blinks in the sharp shock of light in the hallway outside.

They make their way out of the building, back into the cold. Kuroo looks at him appraisingly, smug. “I didn’t know you had it in you,” he chuckles, and Kei blushes. “Whatever,” he snarls, and begins to walk quickly down the street.

Kuroo keeps pace easily, bouncing lightly with every step. “Are you hungry? There’s a strip of shops around here, we can get a bite to eat.” Kei nods stiffly and looks away when Kuroo comes too close for comfort again.

“You’re still red,” he exclaims in delight, Kei flushes harder, walking faster. “Which way to the shops?” he asks gruffly and Kuroo points, but when he drops his arm, he catches hold of Kei’s hand. “You are surprisingly soft for a big guy,” he murmurs contemplatively. Kei swallows and imagines Kuroo’s relationship with Kenma - he must be used to being with smaller people, then. Significantly smaller people. He wonders what else will surprise Kuroo, and is vaguely concerned to discover that he really wants to know.

As it is, he’s still getting the hang of being with another guy at all. Not that he’s ever been with a girl - it just seems easier to wrap his head around, though it doesn’t necessarily make more sense than this does.

They eat at a grungy little coffee shop on the corner of the street, exchanging winces at the bitterness of the hot chocolate, “Too much cocoa,” says Kuroo. By any count the pie is decent, probably frozen solid and thawed in a microwave out back, but it has nothing on the cherry pie that Kei has gotten to know. There is a similar expression on the middle blocker’s face, and at this, he grins. Inside jokes are just as fun as a well-aimed jibe, he notes.

“Why did we even come here?” Kei asks, because he was only following behind Kuroo when they arrived. “Look at the name when we go outside,” Kuroo responds, downing his drink and looking up at him with a smirk. “What, were you too busy checking out my goods on the way in?”

“Like there’s anything worth checking out,” Kei mutters. “Your whole body screams lean cat physique.”

Kuroo’s smile widens and he leans forward a little,  dark hair flopping over his forehead. “So you  _ were _ looking,” he teases. 

Kei thinks it wise not to mention that he has the contours of Kuroo’s body within his loose t-shirts all memorised from the very start. 

He has a habit of giving people careful once-overs upon first meeting them, gauging their strengths and weaknesses. It’s a volleyball habit, actually, and though he isn’t any form of qualified sports scientist, he thinks he knows a good bit about muscles and their functions. Yamaguchi burst into his room waving a book on human anatomy once, when he hadn’t yet decided to study medicine in college, and Kei had learned a bit from that too. Admittedly, they’d spent a good five minutes trying not to laugh as they dared each other to flip to the page on reproductive organs. Not that they could be blamed for it - they’d only been around fourteen, then, still struggling with the surprise rollercoaster that was puberty.

This brings back more memories of Yamaguchi, and suddenly the atmosphere with Kuroo doesn’t feel as good anymore.

His expression doesn’t change, but Kuroo senses the shift in mood. He has animal instincts for minute changes like that, and it’s disarming every time.

“Let’s go,” he says without inflection, and they rise in a scraping of chairs and trembling cutlery. The pie is left unfinished on their table and Kei feels a little bad, because he knows better than to waste food - even when he eats little, he makes sure the rest doesn’t go to waste. However, he has no appetite left and all he wants is to curl up on the bed in his lonely apartment and call his mother, hear Yamaguchi’s voice.

On the way out, Kei looks behind him absently at the name of the coffee shop:  _ Lunar Cats. _   


Kei hasn’t felt this guilty since he went to his older brother’s last high school volleyball game all those years ago. The dark secret of his clandestine trysts with Kuroo weighs in the pit of his stomach like a pebble that can’t be digested, but which he tries to deny the existence of.

They part at the train station, and Kuroo doesn’t ask for clarification as to their relationship. Still, Kei is certain that he’ll ask eventually, and he will have to answer.

_ I love Yamaguchi _ , he imagines himself saying on the train home.  _ I’m sorry, but this wasn’t a good idea. Sorry for leading you on. Hope everything works out with Kenma. _

Even once he has thought these words to himself, the guilt doesn’t let up - ironic how he’s like a frog in a saucepan, blissfully unaware of the heat below him until he’s been cooked. His attraction to Kuroo is like a malignant tumour, and he doesn’t know enough about tumours to get rid of it before it infects the rest of him.

By the way his body has been reacting to the man’s presence, Kei suspects that he’s already a goner.

Kei pulls his headphones over his ears and turns up the volume until it can’t go any higher, before letting out a long breath and turning it down. He doesn’t want to wreck his ears for an asshole who has ruined his whole life plan.   
  


\---

 

After a late afternoon class, Kei walks past the shelter where he usually meets Kuroo for their nightly adventures, if that’s what they’re called, and he almost has himself convinced that it’s for the sake of convenience - it might take him longer to avoid the place, that is, if he walks super slow - when he sees a familiar figure leaning against the wall.

He swallows a lump in his throat and pretends to be surprised. Kuroo grins when he sees him, and his eyes are saying something Kei would rather not try to decode.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come,” Kuroo says as he kicks away from the wall and starts walking, and if Kei were so inclined to pick another stupid analogy now, they’d be two rivers that diverged to let a stone through and joined seamlessly back together. They match each other’s pace instinctively, but Kei is still telling himself that it’s because mismatched footsteps sound incredibly irritating and discordant.

Kei inhales, and prepares to confess loving Yamaguchi, and to say whatever else is on his mind that will amount to their parting. When he tries to speak, though, nothing comes out.

Kuroo sighs and scuffs the toe of his shoe against the pavement. He’s wearing white converses today, with black jeans and a navy sweater. It looks nice on him. Kei instantly backtracks. As he prepares to try again, Kuroo interrupts by stopping.

“What?” Kei looks at him askance, train of thought derailed by the sudden movement.

“I know you’re trying to say something to me,” Kuroo says, looking uncharacteristically tense. “But if you’re not ready, know that you don’t have to tell me now - I’m always happy to listen. Believe me.”

Kei opens his mouth and he’s not sure what he’s planning to say - deny the accusation, probably - but Kuroo stops him with a knowing stare. He shuts his mouth and nods dumbly. Kuroo has hit the jackpot, but he doesn’t want to admit to it.

“I’m not saying this just because I want some time to win you over or something, though that would be nice too. However, I am not an immoral man. I will respect your decision, as long as you make it honestly.”

Kei stares after him as he starts walking again, head held high. He’s never pegged Kuroo as being a particularly reliable captain, nor trustworthy upperclassman, but this seems to dispel all of his doubts.

Still, he has his pride to salvage. “Says the guy who’s totally double-timing,” he replies coldly, and knows as soon as the words are out of his mouth that this is something that’s been worrying him a lot. He doesn’t want to be second-choice or someone’s rebound relationship; is that selfish? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But he’s feeling oddly sulky today and with this newfound candid attitude, Kei wants to will away all the dark clouds still hovering over this bond he has with Kuroo.

He feels guilty about the cruel tone of the accusation, and after a long pause, he’s sure that Kuroo won’t reply - until he does.

“I don’t think I can fix things with Kenma,” is Kuroo’s almost inaudible answer. He sounds beaten down and genuinely despondent, which is something so rare to see in the mischievous man. 

“He deserves better, anyway.”

Kei follows closely behind and his fingers tingle with an itch to reach out, maybe, to touch Kuroo’s shoulder, but he doesn’t. He isn’t  _ touchy-feely _ , nor is he in any box relationship with Kuroo. There’s no reason why he should feel so obliged to cheer him up.

Routine is comfortable, he reasons to himself. Kuroo being upset is very much out of routine, and Kei has an inexplicable urge to hammer all upstanding nails into line.

It doesn’t change the fact that he feels painfully empty when Kuroo sets his shoulders without his help, and turns to smile self-deprecatingly back at Kei.

“Don’t mind me,” he says, and his grin falters ever so slightly before righting itself and stretching further as a warning of the annoying comment ahead. “Wow, Tsukki, you must care about me a great deal. Really, I’m flattered, but did you ever consider wining and dining me before getting your hands on,” he runs his hands down his sides in a provocative way, “All of this?”

His eyes narrow and Kei braces himself for the intensified onslaught. “Wait, I’ve got it,” Kuroo looks at him carefully, “This must be part of your getting-into-bed ritual, right? Getting all teary over a half-friend-half-stranger so that they feel emotionally closer and then you can get physically closer too-”

Kei growls and slaps his hand over Kuroo’s mouth. “Stop talking,” he says warningly, and pulls Kuroo’s face into his chest before he has time to reconsider. Kuroo breathes out, and his uptight posture relaxes imperceptibly. 

He's both alarmed and glad to see that Kuroo has a wonderfully raw side to him as well, a fundamental humanity that bypasses all the horrific pick-up lines and immovably self-assured exterior. 

They walk, heading to a park or a river or just someplace quiet, and Kuroo keeps his face turned into the hollow under Kei’s collarbone for a moment longer, then pulls away. Kei pretends to be oblivious to the shuffling footsteps behind him, but adjusts his pace to match.

Likewise, if Kuroo was anything but peachy in the half hour or so it takes for them to reach a wooden bench by the Yarra river, he doesn’t show any sign of it.

They sit in silence for a few minutes, and then Kei initiates a stone-skipping competition. As he gradually coaxes a genuine smile back onto Kuroo’s face, Kei wonders vaguely if the other will ever tell him about the wedge that has been driven between him and Kenma, and also whether they will still be together like this when he does.

Kei sort of hopes that they are.   
  


\---   
  


During winter break, Kei feels lonely. The rain slashes down outside his window constantly, driving torrents followed by the occasional thunderstorm. It never  _ snows _ , but - and he never thought he’d have cause to think this - Kei rather misses it. Surely a snow-white wonderland is better than the dreary slush of wheels in water-drowned gutters, and perpetually grey skies?

Kuroo is off on a week-long trip to the Great Ocean Road, which he invited Kei to as well, but he declined. It would have been with the middle blocker’s weird third-year business friends, and frankly Kei cannot see the beauty of an overcast ocean and twelve apostle stones that are wearing away from the beating of waves. He’ll be back by Sunday afternoon.

He occupies himself with reading english classics, but there are a myriad of ways in which five words can be prolonged to twenty, and Kei isn’t interested in discovering them all. All the classic authors are long-winded and reading english is difficult in the first place, so he sets it aside in the afternoon with a gusty sigh.

It’s saturday when his mother calls him first. Kei picks up apprehensively, because long-distance calls are expensive and his mother isn’t exactly a spendthrift. All he can think about are emergency situations, and none of them are good.

“Kei,” she gasps over the stuttering static, “Your brother is going to Australia! Can you believe it? He’ll arrive Monday night; do you think you can pick him up at the airport? Oh, Kei, isn’t that just wonderful?”

He can barely get a word in edgeways but he gets the gist of it. His brother here, in Melbourne? It’s difficult to imagine, but not impossible. Kei feels excited, he supposes, at the prospect of family and company, and also a little irritated. Having a guest over takes much effort, and he wouldn’t be surprised if his brother dragged him out to all the tourist spots around the city. 

“How long is he staying?” he asks at last, and his mother pauses to yell something over her shoulder - asking for confirmation, perhaps.

“Two days,” she says a little regretfully, understanding of how hard it must be to have company and then lose it just as quickly. “Still, you’ll have a good time, won’t you? Kei, have a fantastic time with your brother; it’s such a very long way to travel. Goodness knows, I was so afraid when you boarded that plane, and now it’s all happening again! Not very good for my nerves, are you, my two dear boys?”

Kei hmm’s and ah’s through another ten minutes or so of her talking about all the latest news around the neighbourhood, and she ends the call with a note on Karasuno. “Those second-years you left behind,” she says in a stage whisper which is all the more amplified over the phone speaker, “I’ve heard they’re really on track to taking down Nekoma again in the nationals. I don’t know the details, but your old coach Ukai - the young one, of course - left a number in case you wanted to know more. Isn’t that wonderful of him?”

Opening his mouth to agree, Kei is stopped once again by his mother’s overly excited peal of laughter at something said far away. “Oh, Kei, do take some photos when your brother gets there! I have to go now, so bye - take care, and call next week!”

The phone clicks and Kei stares at it speechlessly. 

Alright.

So his brother is coming  _ here _ .

That’s a surprise.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you to everyone who is following this story, and for all the lovely comments! they make me smile and hide my face in my hands; you're all so kind!!
> 
> I'm not very happy with this chapter, mostly because the pacing feels a bit off, but I will try to fix that in the next.   
> (we're almost halfway!)  
> once again, thanks for reading, and let me know what you think!


	5. detours and admissions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Where are we going?” Kei asks warily. 
> 
> “Taking a detour,” Kuroo replies with a crooked smile.

Kei flicks through his contacts and finds Kuroo’s, fingers pausing on the name before he locks his phone again. Nowadays he’s tempted to share every bit of news with the man, but it’s not a good habit to be getting into. Kei is an independent adult now, after all. Anyway, he shouldn’t interrupt whatever good holiday Kuroo is having. He’ll probably see him again tomorrow; maybe there’ll be more news to share then.

Over the course of Sunday morning, Kei makes his flat habitable and himself presentable, and reads through his Classics texts again - or tries to. It’s an honourable attempt, but the whole time he is skittish and restless with anticipation.

Things have long been mended between him and his brother, but they still don’t speak very much. Last he heard, Akiteru was involved in a human rights campaign as a volunteer, while still playing volleyball on the side. He’s felt, on more than one occasion, that as good of a blocker and analyst he is, he’s never quite good enough to match up to Akiteru - perhaps it’s a petty grudge. No one else blames him for it, after all.

Remembering Akiteru means recalling the practice matches he played with his brother’s team back in his first year. He flexes his fingers, and imagines the scratchy material of a volleyball hitting his palm. Kei misses it, misses the slam of impact when a block succeeds, misses seeing Karasuno rack up points and move up the ladder to the national title. More than that, he misses the team - which is why he isn’t playing the game anymore. He wouldn’t admit to it if his life depended on it, but playing volleyball with a different team would not be fun. Bokuto, Kuroo and Yamaguchi had helped him discover his love for it, but the only reason he kept it up was because without it, he realised the dark side of loneliness.

Out here, nothing is familiar, and not even the comfort of volleyball can substitute team spirit which he has learnt to appreciate.

Well, the one familiar thing is Kuroo - who is coming back today. Probably in the afternoon, if the middle blocker’s words are to be trusted.

Kei sleeps fitfully in early part of the afternoon, tossing and turning, and wakes up irritated at 3pm. He’s starting to overcome insomnia some nights, at least while Kuroo isn’t around and he doesn’t have much incentive to indulge the sleeping disorder. Most nights, he sits up and reads on his laptop, or watches volleyball plays to pass the small hours before sunrise.

Thus the powernap, which is completely useless and therefore defeats its purpose. Frowning at himself all the while, Kei checks his phone and sees a new text from Kuroo.

 

_ From: unknown _

_ meet outside your place at 5? _

 

He doesn’t remember telling Kuroo about his address, but maybe he shouldn’t be surprised.

 

_ To: unknown _

_ sure _

 

Shoving his phone back into his pocket, Kei leans back and falls against his bed. After five minutes of listening to the music in his headphones without really hearing anything, he falls asleep again.

_ (One moment, he is running from a volleyball-spewing beast, arms pumping so hard he thinks they might fall off, and the next he is in a darkened cinema with only one other person for company. Of course, that one person has to be Kuroo. Kei’s breath quickens as the familiar face leans in toward him and a tongue licks the shell of his ear, then traces along his jawline. He doesn’t want to find out what happens next, but he can’t seem to move as Kuroo kisses him, bowling him over in the chair and it’s not a chair anymore, they’re on a bed and - ) _

Kei throws an arm over his eyes and groans. He forces himself awake and sits up on his bed before he is fully awake, blood pounding through his head. He so did  _ not _ just have a dream about Kuroo - much less one of that nature. Thankfully, it didn’t seem to have gotten too far into his system.

He stumbles into the bathroom and fixes the rumpled mess of his hair, checking his phone just in time to register  _ 17:01 _ before there’s a knock on his door. “Coming,” he calls, and finds himself struggling to keep his face composed as he makes the long walk to the entrance.

“Kuroo- _ san _ ,” he nods to the man when he opens the door, and the man nods back. “Tsukki,” he smiles, “Didya miss me?”

“I appreciated the peace and quiet,” Kei mutters but evidently a small turn of his lips alerts Kuroo to his actual state of mind, and he doesn’t comment further.

They sit down in the cramped living room, which is basically just the dining room, and Kei pours two glasses of water for them. “How was your trip?” he asks, taking a sip. 

“Fine, cold,” Kuroo waves his hand vaguely in the air as he gulps down his water. “There was so much driving, I thought my backside would be permanently flattened.”

“There’s not much of it as it is now,” Kei remarks impassively, and Kuroo bursts into laughter. 

“Oh, Tsukki, you never cease to amuse me,” he pushes his glass forward in a silent plea for more water. 

Kei obliges, shrugging, “I don’t really try.”

After a minute or so of companionable quiet, Kuroo asks the inevitable question: “Anything happen while I was away? Or would you have texted me?”

Kei weighs up his options and decides to tell him. Actually, he wants to borrow Kuroo’s car to get to the airport - the man commutes to class, but Kei  _ knows _ that he has a car. Has all but seen it in the flesh.

“I wouldn’t have texted you, no,” he begins, “But something did happen. I was wondering if I could borrow your car on Monday.” Short and sharp and to the point. Kei hates having to ask other people for things, such as help or cars, but he is in dire need of it. Postponing it would be like...ripping the band-aid off achingly slowly, until he just wants to tear it off, skin and all. 

Kuroo looks at him carefully, and Kei can tell that he’s asking whether it’s a negative emergency or something equally as bad. He shakes his head very slightly, and wonders if he’s just imagining it when the other relaxes. 

Kei continues with his explanation. “My brother’s coming here for two days, and I don’t know any good way to get to the airport. I can drive,” he adds hastily, realising that he’s left that out, “And I’ve got a good track record with motor vehicles.”

After an uncomfortable silence, Kuroo smiles again. “Sorry, no go,” he gazes at him like it’s a challenge, but something painful falls in Kei’s stomach anyway. He instantly clams up with a allergic reaction to rejection, but Kuroo’s still talking, “My car’s my baby, and anyway, how can I pass up the chance to save a damsel in distress?”

At this, Kei wrinkles his brow in confusion before he knows he’s doing it. He usually prefers to hide his emotions, because - well, goodness, he can’t  _ see  _ what he looks like. What if he makes a really disgusting expression? Also, what business do other people have looking into his mind? However, it’s clear that Kuroo catches this little moment and he stares at him like he’s just met a gloriously cute infant.

“No, see,” Kuroo wags his finger after breaking their eye contact. “I’ll  _ drive  _ you there. I’ll help pick up your brother. Then I’ll take you home and if you ask very nicely, I might play chauffeur for those two days.”

“No need,” Kei answers quickly, because the most he will do is take Akiteru to the zoo or something (and having Kuroo around is really very questionable). “And…” he looks away, “Thanks. Will that be alright?”

“Oh, easy as pie,” Kuroo leans back in his seat and folds his arms behind his head. When Kei doesn’t react, he sighs gustily. “Do you get it? Treat me to pie tonight, and I’ll drive you tomorrow.”

Kei stands, annoyed, and marches out of the room. He’s secretly glad, though.  
  


\---

 

Melbourne airport is like any other airport, all modern and white and loud. Kei is massively ill at ease in the crowded place, but he lets his headphones hang around his neck and wears a carefully-tailored expression of boredom as he weaves his way through the people.

At the international arrivals gate, there are a set of four screens stationed overhead along a walkway, through which people walk and appear live on said screens. Kei is half watching the screens, half watching the walkway, when a hand taps his shoulder and he jumps a mile into the air.

“ _ Nii-san _ ,” he exclaims accusingly at the warm smile that greets him, and Akiteru tips his head in acknowledgement. He’s dressed in a dark overcoat and pale jeans, and he only carries one small suitcase and a smaller bag that he slings across his body.  _ Staying two days _ . 

“Kei,” he sighs and ruffles the younger’s hair, “Have you seriously grown again since the last time I saw you?” Kei shrugs - he’s not sure. Regardless, he’s taller either way, and this is constantly a source of smugness for him that does not make an appearance on his unchanging countenance.

They walk together out of the airport to the public pick-up area, and Kuroo is still parked in the same spot that he let Kei off at. He’s definitely overstayed the minute-long restriction on parking for public pick-ups, but he looks utterly unconcerned as he steps out of the car and helps load Akiteru’s two bags into the trunk.

“Pleasure to meet you, Tsukishima’s-older-brother,” he smiles at them in the rearview mirror and Kei cringes. 

“You can call me Akiteru,” his brother smiles back, “Tsukishima Akiteru. And who might you be?”

“Kuroo Tetsurou,” he turns back to the road. “I used to play volleyball with Tsukki.”

“Oh, you did?” Akiteru leans forward in his seat, grinning. “Say, how was my little brother at the sport? Did he pretend not to enjoy it?”

Kei stares pointedly out of the window and clears his throat, but no one pays him any mind. “Oh,  _ all  _ the time,” Kuroo laughs, and they hit it off from the get-go. Kei regrets not bringing his headphones, but he thought that would be rude when it’s been so long since he’s seen his brother properly, and to think he’d come all the way just to see him. However, the part of him that tried so hard to uphold values is quickly diminishing in power as the journey progresses, and for the whole drive, Kuroo and Akiteru are talking animatedly about this or that.

They pull up in front of Kei’s place, and Kuroo stands in front of the car as the two brothers walk up to the door. “It was a joy meeting you,” Akiteru calls, waving and smiling, and Kei lifts his hand in grudging farewell, too. “Bye, bedhair,” he grunts, and Kuroo gives him a singular glance before folding himself back inside the car and backing out onto the road.

He flaunts his horn once in a resounding hoot, before driving away.

When his brother turns to look at him, Kei is expecting something along the lines of  _ he’s a good friend _ or  _ what a great guy _ , but Akiteru only gives him a considering glance before saying “Let’s go inside.” Kei feels incredibly young and small, and his height does nothing to help that.

 

\---

 

Two days pass very quickly, and he wouldn’t have thought it possible before. Kei likes having his brother around, sort of - it feels alright. They sit around and Akiteru helps him clean up his place for an afternoon, and they spend a day at the zoo the next. It’s at his brother’s insistence, so Kei obliges, but he has to pretend not to be slightly fascinated by the monkeys with their pink backsides and birds who never tire of singing in their cage.

Kei doesn’t mind the company of someone familiar at his side, even though they’ve grown undoubtedly apart. His brother manages to have a reaction for everything: “There’s so much english here, how can you  _ cope _ ?” and “There’s such an insane diversity of food here, how can there be so many different cultures all congregated at one place?”

Kei runs with it. They eat quietly in the lounge and it’s not an encroaching silence. Akiteru shows him pictures of his girlfriend and Kei’s throat clams up at the thought of Kuroo. Speaking of, Kuroo never fails to text him every night:

 

_From: unknown_

_ good day and good night. _

 

Akiteru reads it over his shoulder and grins. 

Kei doesn’t have much cause to suspect an overly perceptive older brother until Akiteru broaches the subject the night before his departure, cramming things into his two bags.

“Say, Kei,” he calls across the room and Kei hm’s in response. “Are you in a relationship?” 

The word strikes a nerve, but Kei frowns like he doesn’t have the faintest idea what his brother is on about. He hasn’t told anyone about Yamaguchi, though his old teammates back at Karasuno had things more or less figured out by the end.

“You know, love? Crush? Are you dating?”

Kei sighs and turns to face his brother fully. “Did mother set you up to this?” he asks, and Akiteru shakes his head quickly. 

“No, I’m curious,” he smiles. “You don’t mention ever having a significant other, and you’re at that age now when most people go out at some point. I guess you’re not the most social person, but? Are you?”

Briefly, Kuroo flashes up in his mind and he grips his phone a little tighter. “No,” he grits out, “I’m not. Nor do I want to be.”

Akiteru hums thoughtfully, and Kei tries to think of all the many ways he could worm his way out of this conversation - none of which are both plausible as well as dignified. Carefully, his brother stands up and shuffles his way to the couch, stepping over all his possessions placed haphazardly about the floor.

“Then,” he raises his brows as he sinks down onto the couch and motions for Kei to join him, “How about that Yamaguchi boy?”

Kei clenches a fist at his side, and wills up a mental image of Yamaguchi with his freckled face and wide-eyed smile. “We’re just friends,” he mutters, feeling the guilt of betrayal sink its blade into his gut.

“Are you sure?” Akiteru persists. Sometimes he is kind and understanding, but sometimes he is also annoyingly pushy. Kei fights the urge to stand up and storm back to his room, as he might have if he were a  _ little _ less mature, and instead holds his silence.

“We’re all modern thinkers in this world,” his brother holds his hands out and gestures widely around the room, “I don’t blame you for liking boys.”

“We’re just friends,” Kei repeats heatedly, and Akiteru sighs.

“I saw the way you looked at him,” he states.

Kei’s heart stops, and he’s not sure whether Akiteru is referring to Yamaguchi or - worse - Kuroo. He can’t deny that it’s Kuroo’s sneering face that he thinks of first, followed by the last memory he has of Yamaguchi, standing all alone in the airport as he passed through the boarding counters.

Akiteru grins.

“I so had you on that one!” he crows, laughing, and Kei scowls.

Leaning forward conspiratorially, Akiteru grins smugly and asks, “So, who did you think of just then?”

“No one,” Kei grumbles, seriously considering leaving, now.

“Liar,” Akiteru doesn’t buy it, “You should have seen your reaction.” 

When Kei doesn’t answer, his smile softens in sympathy. “I’m not going to push it, because I’m a good older brother. But just so you know I care,” he waggles his eyebrows, “I hope it all works out.”

Kei nods, relieved.

He thinks that the subject has been dropped and they climb under their blankets an hour or so later, Akiteru on the bed (because that’s polite) and Kei stretched out on the floor. It’s not uncomfortable, really.

“Kei,” his brother whispers through the darkness a few minutes after they turn out the lights. “I know I don’t have a right to say this, but hear me out?”

Kei stays silent, but he figures it’s obvious he’s still awake.

“If there is someone you like, ever,” Akiteru resumes cautiously, “Make sure of it and then don’t hesitate to tell them if it’s what you want. Please don’t brush it off. Don’t get old before you have your first kiss.”

_ I’ve already had mine _ , he thinks to himself, but he doesn’t speak. After a few more minutes, the second set of breaths in the room has evened out and Kei lets himself sleep too. It takes him a while, mind churning with thoughts and images, but he does his best to banish his brother’s advice to the back of his mind and eventually falls into darkness.  
  


\---  
  


There is one thing that he is absolutely certain of, when he wakes, and that is that Kuroo’s brows are crooked. This revelation is followed by a stifled groan as he remembers the deep waters that he’s in, what with confusing feelings and even more bewildering people. Resigning himself to whatever that will come, Kei clambers out of his makeshift bed and trots into the kitchen, readying breakfast. His brother is already awake, taking an early shower.

The niggling thought doesn’t go away for the whole morning, and he almost blurts it out when Kuroo calls him at half-past ten to tell him that he’s coming over to pick them up and drive them to the airport.

Akiteru looks at him sadly over the breakfast table, and Kei manages some semblance of echoing his disappointment. They eat quickly and Kei is in a state of warring thoughts over whether he wants his silence back more or whether he misses his brother more. It’s weird, but they’re growing closer despite walking parallel lines that should never meet.

Kuroo arrives very punctual and well-dressed in a pressed shirt and dark pants, and Akiteru takes shotgun seat. Once again, the pair are talking - “Did you see that poor giraffe in the newspapers” and “I hope you’ve had a tremendous time here.”

At some point, Kei drifts off again, lulled by the sound of the tires and odd little bumps on the road.

Akiteru waves him goodbye after checking in, and Kei is a little sorry to see him go. “Live it up a bit, Kei,” he smiles and ruffles his hair once.

He frowns in reply, but it doesn’t have much of his usual distaste. “Call me or get mother to call as soon as you get back,” he says in a mixture of urgency and feigned coolness.

Nodding, Akiteru looks at him fondly like he’s understood him all the way through from the very start. His gaze flickers knowingly between Kei and Kuroo, who stands a few metres behind him to give them their privacy. Kei thinks that he’s being paranoid.

“Bye, Kei, see you during your summer break!”

“Bye,” he flaps his hand awkwardly, and watches as Akiteru’s figure disappears behind a throng of people. Kei watches until he sees his brother’s head bobbing in the hustle and bustle of movement, and until there is no way that he can see him anymore.  
  


\---

 

“You’re very quiet,” Kuroo observes on their drive back. “Does Tsukki miss his brother already?”

“Shut it,” Kei answers, “I’m no different from usual.”

“You are,” Kuroo shrugs, and turns his attention from the road to Kei at a red light. He looks contemplative but otherwise unreadable. Kei thinks that the topic has been exhausted, until Kuroo suddenly pulls off the road into a winding side street that, he’s sure, has no value in reducing time or distance.

“Where are we going?” he asks warily. 

“Taking a detour,” Kuroo replies with a crooked smile.

They pull into the gravel carpark behind a huge lake, framed by reeds and tall grasses. In the morning sunshine, there are ducks swimming, smooth-feathered and sleek as the water reflects glittering light up over their bellies.

Kuroo walks to a bench and sits down, motioning for Kei to follow suit. He does, albeit reluctantly, and they sit and watch the ducks. 

“Something’s up,” Kuroo begins, eyes still fixated on the birds without a single twitch in his expression. “What’s the matter? Did something happen with your brother?”

“Nothing’s wrong,” Kei grits out, following the other’s movements in his peripheral. He doesn’t want to talk about this - as far as he’s concerned, there’s nothing the matter at all. Perhaps there’s the inkling of discomfort inside, but for as long as he ignores it well, it shouldn’t pose a problem. Not to mention, it’s likely a worthless concern anyway.

Kuroo looks at him with a meaningful glance and Kei looks away. “Princess,” he smiles, “Only those afraid of facing obstacles will run away from them.” 

“You’re not my father,” Kei rolls his eyes. “Nor my mother, for that matter.”

“No,” he shrugs, “But I’m your friend.”

“Are you?”

As soon as he says it, Kei regrets it. He’s being bitter and insecure, but Kuroo should have foreseen that his spiked walls would come up eventually.

“Look who’s being the devil’s advocate today,” Kuroo smiles teasingly. “Why do you even need to ask?”

Kei shrugs, and lets the gates crumble and the words rush out without a filter. “I wasn’t sure if what you wanted was to be with me, or get in my pants.”

Kuroo stares at him in disbelief. “You have a horrifically low opinion of me,” he says, pretending to be offended to hide the slightest flash of hurt in his gaze. “Of course I wanted to be with you more - you haven’t even decided whether we’re in a relationship or not, and you’re the one with all the power of choice here.”

That’s right, Kei isn’t being fair. He doesn’t care, though - there are still things bottled up inside him. Who would have thought that he was such a prickly idiot?

In one mighty rush, the stress of the past few days crash onto him and sink their roots into him, feeding off of his sudden outburst. His anger rears its ugly head, the kind that builds up inside and explodes once in a blue moon. Of course, it had to happen  _ now _ . 

Fury and outrage are intoxicating and they hold him in his iron grip. Kei reminds himself of everything he left behind him, everything that he thought was lost: his friends, a chance at love, home and familiarity and the door of happiness. 

Then he thinks of Kuroo, Kuroo with his frightening attentiveness to every little detail, Kuroo with his impenetrable defense and his bedroom eyes, his horrendous hairstyle and bikie fashion sense - everything that Kei shouldn’t like at all, but which he is somehow driven insane by when it’s Kuroo. It makes him feel helpless, and Kei hates not know exactly what he is doing.

He stands up and rounds on Kuroo, fists clenched at his side. “So that’s what you think, is it?” he bites out with a gnashing of teeth. “ _ I  _ have all the power of choice? Hundreds of goddamn miles away from home, with no one I can talk to, and  _ I  _ can choose whether I want this?”

Kuroo looks confused, but he lets him talk.

“Everyone back home thinks that I’m having the time of my life,” Kei continues, “They think I’m so lucky to be overseas and immersed in an exotic culture and, wow, look at that! There’s even an old friend here.  _ No one  _ stops to think that maybe I feel trapped out here because if I’m not with you, I’ll be alone. Do you know how sick I am of being alone? I don’t know what I’m doing anymore. Everyone is so annoying. I don’t know what I’m living for.”

“Well of course,” Kuroo is angry now and he stands too, “How about  _ me _ ? I’ve had a stupid crush on you for the longest time and guess who turns up overseas! Everything was going well enough with Kenma but the day I said I was going to college here he just turned away! I don’t even know  _ why _ , and I thought that was bad enough, so I kept chasing him like the desperate pity case I was. You turned up just at the right time to ruin it all.”

A crush on him for a long time? Kei feels as though his head has been thrown into a storm, whirling and whizzing with thoughts that he can’t make sense of. He doesn’t like being so out of control, but it’s becoming the unnecessarily common state.

When he’s confused, he does the only thing he can: lash out.

“ _ I _ ruined it? You told me it was going downhill way before then. Aren’t you just playing the sorry little victim?” Kei bites the inside of his lip. He doesn’t want to say this. He doesn’t want to argue with Kuroo. But he’s too proud to step down.

Kuroo gives him a withering glare and something shuts down inside him.  _ Well, shit. _

“All you know how to do is fight with everyone who tries to get close,” Kuroo tells him flatly and impassively, shoving his hands into his pockets. “You’ve built up walls so high that it takes a man brave enough to scale Mount Everest to even get close, and then you start firing cannons. How are you ever going to make yourself happy?”

“What makes you think you  _ know _ what makes me happy?” Kei retorts furiously. “I can look after myself just fine; I don’t even know how this happened. You kept  _ pushing _ and what was I supposed to do?” He feels so exposed saying this that he almost doesn’t register at all the next words that fly out of his mouth, and afterwards, he can’t find it inside himself to care.

“You made me like you when I had no intention to,” he says, “And then you walk away! What do you  _ want _ ? Do you want me to pine after you? You,” Kei throws up his hands, “You act like you’re making all the big sacrifices, trying to get me to like you, trying to act like the perfect gentleman, but you’re just a manipulative jerk. Don’t you ever think it’s hard for  _ me _ ?”

Kuroo takes a step closer, and Kei wants to bolt. He doesn’t regret saying that, but he wishes he weren’t here to face the consequences of it.  _ What if this is the end? _ The thought terrifies him more than it should; nothing has ever been as precious and simultaneously as hateful as this.

“I’m still angry at you,” Kuroo whispers, hand floating uselessly in midair like it’s trying to decide whether to withdraw or reach out. “I’d say it’s my fault for always expecting to get what I want, but I think we’re both to blame.”

“Shut up,” Kei whispers back, afraid that his resolve shatter. He still doesn’t know where this is going, but he thinks he might and the suspense is upsetting the precarious balance on which his emotions sit. 

Kuroo is silent for so long that Kei wonders, briefly, if this is just a dream.

It’s not.

His mind escapes from him, untethered by rationality, spinning off all sorts of scenes from romantic movies - the ones where people confess and kiss, the moment before everything takes a turn for the better. Really, the admission could come from either of them. Kei feels afloat somewhere above, wild and out of hand. This could be love, or it could not.

When Kuroo clears his throat, Kei looks away and says quickly, “I have to go.”

Then he runs.

  
Kuroo doesn’t run after him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Forgive me! A lot of things happen in this chapter (I think?) and uhhh....yeah. I like to write the next few parts in advance, which is why this is updated relatively often, but the next chapter might take a bit longer. Thanks for sticking with this, and me! Never fear, though, this won't be a sad story. 
> 
> I am endlessly grateful for your kudos and comments and bookmarks - fuel for a writer's engine!!!  
> Thank you so much for reading, and please let me know what you think!


	6. the first step back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Thanks,” he tells the phone, but Kuroo has already hung up.
> 
> “I like you,” he adds, his voice soft in the silence.

 

A few days before the end of winter break, Kei has finished all the work for his classes, and sits twiddling his thumbs. It’s been two weeks since the last time he phoned Yamaguchi, and there are three unanswered messages on Skype:

 

_ [19/7/19, 12:03:15] Yamaguchi Tadashi: Tsukki? are you there? _

_ [19/7/19, 12:04:01] Yamaguchi Tadashi: I don’t mind if youre not in the mood to talk, but are you ok? _

_ [21/7/19, 18:19:46] Yamaguchi Tadashi: your brother came by today, said you were well, but I want to hear it from you. please _

 

Kei stares at it, reads over the words for maybe the fifteenth time, and like all the times before it, his fingers freeze over the keyboard and he sighs. Thinking about Yamaguchi is synonymous to betrayal in his mind, and he’s never been a stickler for fidelity. The surprising guilt that weighs him down now is a stranger, and Kei hates strangers. He’s still debating whether he hates Kuroo Tetsurou more.

Since the day that Akiteru left, Kuroo hasn’t contacted him, and Kei hasn’t bothered to initiate anything. It’s only after checking his phone obsessively for two days that he realises that he’s been taking Kuroo’s forwardness for granted. 

As if letting Kuroo take charge could overwrite his involvement in a mutual attraction.

He was so naive.

Before he’s aware of what he’s doing, Kei calls the last number he called, and it’s not Kuroo. Maybe the digits were once familiar enough to swallow him whole in childish anticipation, but now they’re a condemnation, swimming before him until Kei realises that he’s crying. Just a little.

“Tsukki?”

Kei inhales, and exhales. He reminds himself to breathe, reminds his heart to beat, and tries to forget Kuroo. “Yamaguchi,” he whispers through the phone, and the line crackles. 

“Tsukki,” Yamaguchi sighs, and suddenly he sounds oddly like a teenage girl swooning over her first crush. Kei bites down on the idea, and responds, “Hey, just wanted to say, I’m fine.”

Yamaguchi shifts on the other end, and the minute sound is magnified into a series of jumps and leaps in their connection. Kei holds the phone a little further away from his ear, and wishes he could lose himself in the noise.

“You could have told me that via Skype,” Yamaguchi points out, and Kei shrugs, even though it can’t be seen. “I felt like calling,” he offers, but that statement trails off into an upward inflection like he’s asking himself if that’s even true.

The other end is silent for a moment.

“That’s not like you,” Yamaguchi says cautiously, and Kei realises that he doesn’t like this. Doesn’t like not being able to see the other person’s face. He had once - that, he knows for sure. Sometime before this whole fiasco overseas, he’d thought that online messaging was the best way to hold a conversation, because what could beat talking without having to reveal every little reaction and passing thought?

Kuroo beats that, he thinks distantly, and then it’s gone as quickly as it came.

“Tsukki?”

Kei realises that he’s been unresponsive for too long, and he clears his throat to make his presence known. “I don’t know, distance does things to the mind,” he tries to joke, but it comes out empty and flat. Yamaguchi chuckles nervously. “Are you sure?” he asks, and it sounds awfully like he’s trying to end the conversation.

Kei fumbles with the vestiges of their dynamic; he’s never had to do that before. Always, Yamaguchi would be there by his side. That was a given, that was how they  _ worked _ . More than that, and Kei’s eyes widen in the darkness of his room, he’s always assumed that Yamaguchi would make the first move. Kiss? Sure, Yamaguchi would do that and he’d be ready for it. Go out? Sure, Yamaguchi can figure it out, if that’s what he wants.

He slams his fist onto his desk and lets out a small sound of discomfort. Kei rubs the side of his right hand, and almost drops his phone.  _ Shit. _

“Tsukki? Are you alright? What was that noise?”

“Ah,” he gasps, “I’m fine. Just hit my hand on something is all. How are you?”

_ How are you? _

How long has it been since he’s had cause to ask that?

Yamaguchi seems initially taken aback by the surprising question, but he takes it in his stride. “I’m well, Tsukki, I think - I think the furniture business is going well, so I’m earning a lot.”

“Talk about your month,” Kei says, and Yamaguchi pauses before diving into the details, hesitantly at first and then enthusiastically.

“Well, you see, there was this guy in one of my classes and-”

Kei sinks into his seat and tips his head back to the ceiling. Sunset passes outside his window, and he shuts his eyes against the cold draft that shuffles inside and billows out the curtains. He’s floating in a deep, dark sea, and Yamaguchi’s voice anchors him to the sliver of daylight above the surface.

“-sometimes I have trouble keeping up with all the work, but there’s a-”

Only he can’t quite get Kuroo’s smile out of his mind, and it turns Yamaguchi’s words into slush that pass through one ear and out the other. Kei lets him talk.

“-and I was wondering, will you be back for summer break?”

_ I think so _ . Kei says, or he thinks he does, but no sound comes out.  _ Yeah, I am. _ He swallows.  _ I’m going to see you _ .

“Tsukki?”

_ I miss you. _

“Tsukki, are you still there? I’m sorry, did I talk too long?”

_ Keep talking. _

“I...did I do something wrong? Tsukki, please, speak to me.”

“N-no,” Kei croaks out. “No, I just...your voice is nice. I’m a bit tired, sorry, Yamaguchi.”

_ I wish I could say ‘I miss you’. _

_ What would Kuroo do? _

Kei imagines a different voice responding, and can just about guess the exact timing of his laugh if they were in the same situation. Kuroo would laugh at him, yes, then call him out for being a liar, and somehow wrangle a meeting or some sort of ill-fated deal out of him.

Kuroo would figure out what was wrong.

But maybe he’s not being fair, seeing as he’s been away from Yamaguchi for too long.

“O-okay,” Yamaguchi doesn’t sound convinced, but after a pause, a smile comes into his voice. “We should talk more,” he offers, and when Kei doesn’t respond, he hurriedly adds, “But I’ll let you sleep! Gosh, Tsukki, don’t work yourself too hard, okay? Bye!”

_ Goodbye. _

The call ends with a click, and Kei feels himself drowning in the deep, dark sea.

He dreams of Kuroo.   
  


\---

 

There is something ringing persistently, and it’s the most irritating sound. Kei opens his eyes, and fumbles for his glasses, before realising that they are still perched on the bridge of his nose. He must have fallen asleep in his chair - it explains the stiffness in his body just about everywhere.

He lets his eyes adjust to the sunlight pouring in, before attending to the noise. It’s his phone, and he picks it up irritably. Someone’s calling from an unknown number, but Kei would know that number anywhere.

But it’s not Kuroo.

For a moment, he thinks he’s going to reject the call.

He presses the green button instead.

“Hey, Kei!”

“Hey,  _ nii-san _ .”

Akiteru sounds painfully enthusiastic, far more so than anyone in their right minds in the early morning should be. Kei tries to affect nonchalance, but the truth is his mind is whirring, churning with thoughts that he can’t quite make sense of.

“I just called to see if you’re well?”

Kei frowns, and taps his fingertips against the table irritably. He’s honestly more angry with himself for not only failing to see how obviously off he must have been acting, and also for being quite so unable to respond to the concern of others.

“I’m fine,” he replies, and it comes out sounding sharper than he had intended. As though to make up for it, though it’s sorry consolation for his prickly personality, he adds “Just tired.”

Akiteru pauses. Usually, this is when he comes up with some far-fetched idea that Kei eventually goes along with, and then it somehow fixes everything.

This time, that’s not what happens. “Are you coming back during your summer break?”

Kei wrinkles his brow in confusion. He thinks to let it go, but curiousity gets the better of him. “You’re not going to ask me what the matter is?” 

As soon as the words are out of his mouth, he berates himself for giving the game away. Surely he’s just confirmed the fact that there is something wrong, and he hasn’t got anyone to blame for it but himself.

“No,” Akiteru answers, sounding surprised himself. “You’re…”

He trails off, and Kei prompts, “I’m?”

“I guess you’re old enough to look after yourself,” his brother replies slowly, drawing out the words like he’s reluctant to admit it. “Maybe we’ve all babied you too much.”

Kei holds the phone away from his ear for a moment, breath catching in his throat. This is the idea he’s had since high school, constantly wishing that people would take a step back and let him control his own life - all of his aunts and uncles remarked that he was sensible and mature, every time they saw him. Even when he decided to study overseas, there was little obstruction to his decision because everyone figured he knew what he wanted for himself.

Now that Akiteru has finally voiced it, however, having always been one of the few who seemed to believe Kei was never going to grow up totally, the words sting more than they should. 

Which is absurd, because does Kei  _ want _ to be treated like a child?

“What makes you say that?” he hedges.

Akiteru says, “I thought you were all for it, like, ten years ago.”

“Whatever, just, why?”

After a pause, “Did you know what your old friend Hinata told me the one time he came over to our house?”

Kei remembers that. It was the one and only time he agreed to having a New Year’s get-together with the volleyball team, and the only two people who turned up were Hinata and Kageyama - it was their third year. 

Akiteru continues, a smile in his voice. “I asked him what he thought of you, of course, and Hinata said to me straight up that you were emotionally stunted and needed some serious coddling.”

Kei scowls.

“I took that to mean I needed to be a more proactive older brother,” Akiteru muses, “But I think he didn’t intend for that to be the message. I think,” he pauses, “He meant to say that you wanted to be treated as an individual.”

“Doubtful,” Kei shrugs, by habit. “He’s got the brain mass of a goldfish.”

“That may be, but anyway, I’ve thought about that and I think you’ve got things under control. Don’t bottle everything up, though? And come back for summer break.”

The conversation is speeding quickly towards its conclusion and Kei is left a little unhinged, not quite bewildered but a little angry, a little upset, a little surprised by the kindling flame of happiness that broods inside him. 

“Bye,” he says at last, because he gets it. He thinks he gets it.

“See you,” Akiteru responds, and the call ends with a click.

Kei stands up and stretches, looking around at his flat. It’s comfortable and just enough on the quiet side to not feel empty, but he feels something akin to the impulse that drove him out running the first night he saw Kuroo. He wants - well. Something more. It would be a real shame if this scene were the depiction of how the rest of his life goes down.

After college, he’d planned to return home, find a reasonably well-paid job as a lawyer or a banker and marry at thirty, have kids, grow old and be buried beside his parents. That plan was abruptly derailed when Yamaguchi came into the picture, and it just barely swerved back onto course when he came overseas to get away from distractions.

But then, what about youth? People always say that the springtime of youth lasts but a season, and he’s not ready, yet, to forget how to be young and powerful.

_ Emotionally stunted. Yeah, right _ .

He smiles wryly and doesn’t let himself think too much before he powers up his laptop and finds Skype. Sometimes he wants too much and that’s frightening in and of himself.

Yamaguchi answers on the third ring of the video call and Kei takes a deep breath to steady himself. On the other end, the camera adjusts a few times, blurring this way and that, until it settles and there’s a familiar face peering back at him.

Kei misses him, but it’s a different sort of ache - different to when he first left Japan. 

“Hey, Tsukki,” Yamaguchi grins, a scattering of freckles across his nose.  _ He doesn’t want this in the same way, though. Somewhere along the line, their paths have diverged without Kei even realising. _

“I’ve got something to tell you,” Kei says, as gently as he can. It’s common knowledge that this is break-up talk, and he never thought he’d be the one administering it.

The look on Yamaguchi’s face shows that he’s realised it too, but he doesn’t look overly perturbed. A little nervous, maybe.

“So do I,” he admits, eyes skittering away from the camera.

When the silent pause goes on for too long, Kei takes initiative. “I like someone else,” he says, for want of something better to say. Yamaguchi flinches, but he doesn’t speak.

“I’d like to break up, that is, if that’s alright.”

After a long moment, Yamaguchi blurts out, “I don’t think we were ever together in the first place.”

Kei frowns at this, because he can understand sadness or anger but not this. He waits for Yamaguchi to clarify, and he obliges with an apologetic smile.

“It was nice enough the two times we kissed, but,” his shoulders climb up to his ears like a frightened rabbit. “I was never sure if you wanted it.”

“How could you doubt it?” Kei demands. He knows he can be cold, but he can’t believe it wasn’t embarrassingly obvious how much he actually wanted more than friendship.

“How was I to know?” Yamaguchi fires back. “I figured you didn’t like me as much as I did you, and that was okay. As long as you liked me enough to be with me. I don’t think that’s healthy anymore, though.”

He looks up at Kei like he’s waiting for him to disagree, but all words abandon him in the wake of this. He realises a little guiltily that he’s not upset. Rather, he’s relieved. It’s horrible.

“So I was going to ask you the same thing.”

_ Oh. To break up. _

_ Wait, no. Just for permission to be with someone else. _

“Alright,” he says a little stiffly.

“Alright,” Yamaguchi echoes.

They end the call.

 

_ [24/7/19, 11:58:43] Yamaguchi Tadashi: sorry, Tsukki _

_ [24/7/19, 11:58:57] Yamaguchi Tadashi: I just need some time _

_ [24/7/19, 11:59:02] Yamaguchi Tadashi: is our friendship over? _

_ [24/7/19, 12:00:12] Tsukishima Kei: don’t be an idiot. _

 

Kei sighs, and buries his head in his arms.    
  


\---   
  


Classes are the same trials as he endured before break, only they’re magnified many times over in the memory of liberating holidays. Kei goes through the motions, and the day passes agonisingly slowly. However, it is ample distraction to stop his mind from wandering over all the other drama that’s happened, and he’s grateful for it.

In between, he lies back in the courtyard on the grass, even as the winter breeze bites into his face and leaves his fingers numb. He’s waiting for something - what, he’s not sure.

When he catches glimpse of a dark-headed boy ahead, his heart skips a beat, but it’s not Kuroo. This happens three more times, and Kei can’t help feeling like his body is trying to tell him something very blatantly. It’s sort of like:  _ do you know what would make this better? _

Kei tries to convince himself that he doesn’t, but he does.

After class, in the fading light of afternoon, he takes out his phone and makes a call that he’s sure he’s going to regret. He’s so, so tempted to end it after the first ring, but he holds it pressed against his ear until the rings suddenly cut off and are replaced by a low voice.

“Hello? Tsukki?”

“Hey,” he tries, but his voice cracks instantly. “Hey, Kuroo.”

“You don’t sound too well,” the disembodied voice sounds amused, and Kei finds his lips curling up into a small smile despite himself.

“Do you have class today?” It’s a lame attempt at small talk.

“Yeah, just finished.”

Kei’s heart is thudding louder than a drum beat, louder than the sound of blood rushing through his ears.

“Can you come over?” he asks before he can stop himself. 

“Where?” Kuroo asks.

Kei groans internally for his blunder. “You know, the spot near the school building. Sheltered.”

“I have an errand to run today,” Kuroo says smoothly, and Kei struggles to discern the difference between truth and lie.

“Oh.” Kei falters, “Another time, then.”

“Another time,” Kuroo agrees amiably and ends the call.

It’s not so easy for Kei.

He stares at the offending phone for a minute, trying to think past the one phrase that repeats itself over and over through his head:  _ he rejected me _ .

But, no, surely there’s a reason for this - maybe Kuroo was actually busy? Kei prided himself on being a good enough reader of people, however, and this conclusion didn’t make a whole lot of sense. Kuroo seemed - well, it was selfish of him to think so, but he seemed like the kind of person to drop everything for someone else. 

Suddenly angry, Kei drops his phone into his bag and stalks away, heading somewhere. Somewhere, anywhere, wherever he can have some peace of mind without everything revolving around the horrifying sun that was Kuroo Tetsurou.

Orbits are hard to deter, however, and even though Kei spreads out his books on a table in the library, trying to study, the words make little sense to him. The only thing that  _ does  _ make sense should, by all means, be inconceivable.

For a moment, he lets himself think it:  _ I like Kuroo. _

He’s not sure what he hoped - that perhaps the silent confession would unknot all the tangled up emotions inside him? It doesn’t work. Instead, it just adds more guilt to the mix, until Kei slams his textbook closed and stands up, breathing heavily.

No, that’s not quite right. He  _ wants _ Kuroo, wants to be by his side and to hear his voice and to run his fingers through his gravity-defying hair. He wants to do all sorts of things with Kuroo, and the options are mostly quite tame. 

He wants to wake up with the sun streaming through undrawn curtains in a warm bed next to Kuroo, he wants to be entitled to little kisses over coffee and to brush their teeth side by side, because he’s sure that Kuroo has a thing for ugly (or cute) pyjamas, depending on who he asked, and -

He’s never had cause to want something quite so unreasonable, that makes quite as much sense to him.

It’s bearing into evening now, and the sky is streaked with dark clouds ambling gently across its expanse. The distances are shortening into shadow, and the grainy texture of the table smudges and blurs beneath his hand.

Kei smiles a little ruefully, and thinks what a laughing stock his carefully-planned life has come to.

Strangely enough, he doesn’t mind as much as he thought he would.

Digging through his bag, he recovers his phone and without stopping to overthink the consequences, dials Kuroo’s number.

It rings for a few long moments, and Kei bites his bottom lip, worrying away at it.  _ Please pick up _ .

Finally, “Hello?”

“Kuroo,” he greets. “Can you meet me outside the pie place?”

There is a long pause, followed by “I told you I was busy.”

It sounds less accusing than the words seem to suggest, however, and Kei takes this as encouragement to continue.

“You did,” he concedes a little apologetically, “But you’re done now, aren’t you?”

“Why?” Kuroo answers almost immediately. He doesn’t clarify further, and Kei doesn’t ask.

“Just. Please.” Kei blinks a few times, feeling the press of darkness creeping over his skin like dread - only it’s been a long time since he feared the dark, and he hasn’t been afraid since the first night with Kuroo.

Even before that, maybe, but that was the first time he ever enjoyed the sleepless nighttime.

“I’ll be fast,” he adds, trying to curb the note of pleading that sneaks between his teeth.

A pause, and then -

“Sure, see you in twenty.”

Kei breathes.

It’s curiously comforting, and it’s now that Kei thinks that maybe he should have kept his distance a little longer, played hard to get a little more. Apparently Kuroo is the kind to grow on people like fungus that blends into the colour of tree bark (stop with the disgusting analogies, Kei) and when they realise, they’ve already been infected. It only goes downhill from there.

“Thanks,” he tells the phone, but Kuroo has already hung up.

“I like you,” he adds, his voice soft in the silence.

The library closes for the night right on time, at 6pm, and Kei shrugs his bag over his shoulder and pads quietly through the streets, inhaling through his nose and exhaling with a light sigh.

With darkness draping the world like a cloak, the night feels alive. A breeze seems to billow out the shadowy cape for a moment, but the illusion fades when a tree rustles overhead and Kei flinches. Then he smiles.

He makes it to the cafe in just over ten minutes, and by the time his state of mind has settled enough for him to check the time, it’s passed fifteen.

Anxious with anticipation, he counts down the minutes and the seconds, each one driving a fresh flurry of butterflies through his stomach. He has nothing planned for this, after all. Maybe he ought to feel horribly unprepared for something that means as much to him as this - what, confession? - does, but the impulsiveness tugs at his fancy, and he’s elated. This is what he was chasing after, the fateful night he decided to go for a run. This feeling of being untethered, untied to anything and only ever going up, up, up through the sky. 

After four minutes, he wants to flee, but he plants his feet firmly in the ground and tries to look casual, all the while sweeping covert glances around at the people walking by. Of course, the one time he fails to keep his eyes on his surroundings is the time that Kuroo arrives, and when Kei looks up, startled, Kuroo is smiling at him, dressed in a leather jacket and dark jeans, emerging from the darkness like Poseidon from the sea.

_ I like you _ .

The words die on his lips, and Kei forces himself to smile as well. “Thanks, Kuroo,” he manages, and Kuroo inclines his head.

“Did you want to talk, or?” Kuroo prompts and Kei freezes. “Y-yeah, I guess,” he stutters, and Kuroo’s smile softens a little. Just like that, Kei isn’t sure anymore. With Kuroo in front of him, all the memories of their argument come rushing back, and Kei isn’t sure whether he should bring it up. It had seemed like Kuroo forgave him in the end, but he ran away like the coward he was instead of facing it. Now, Kuroo isn’t saying a word about it, and what Kei wouldn’t give so that he didn’t have to feel this guilt for his selfishness over the past few months.

The unspoken hangs in between them, held up and stretched taught, waiting to be broached.

But Kei is done with running away.

He squares his shoulders and meets Kuroo’s eye, “I’m very sorry.”

The night air stings his face, and Kuroo’s expression is unreadable. He waits, and Kei stumbles through a serious of stammers until he finds the words he is looking for. Or, maybe they weren’t the right words after all, but they fit in his mouth and they tumble out, and Kei blunders on.

“I’ve been selfish, and wrong. I’ve strung you along, done all manner of spoiled things I shouldn’t have, and -”

“Done what?”

Kei isn’t sure if Kuroo is saying this just to spite him, but the question snaps him off and he stops, considering. He doesn’t want to answer it.

“I blamed you for everything that went wrong.” Kei pauses, “You made it clear and all that you liked me, I think, but I felt like I was a fallback option after Kenma and it didn’t sit well.”

Oh, how he wants to end it there. Kei knows that he can’t afford to play his own actions off lightly like he’s tempted to do, now, though. That would just bring them back to square one, and Kuroo would leave, and Kei doesn’t want Kuroo to leave.

“I was just being selfish, though; you already said things weren’t well with Kenma and I should have tried to help but,” he swallows, “I didn’t want you to split your affections.” Blushing, he continues.

“But, I like you, Kuroo, I really like you and I wondered if you still feel the same? Not that you have to answer now, but. Eventually. And I know I’ve done things I shouldn’t have and you’ve just looked after me the whole way through, and that’s terribly embarrassing, but I’d like to start afresh.”

Kuroo still says nothing, and the darkness holds them in a web of quiet bridged only by their breaths, and the rest of the world feels so, so far away.

“If you love Kenma, that’s okay too.”

Kei swallows again, with some difficulty, feeling an utterly alien sensation of prickling heat behind his eyes.  _ No, no, no no no no - _

“I like you,” Kuroo takes two steps forward with his long legs and wraps his arms around Kei, so much grander in the heart even though Kei is taller. It’s a grandness that Kei could never hope to surpass him in - a gracious, generous embrace, something that’s not so much learned as  _ known _ .

Kei chokes on a sob, but he’s smiling so hard his face could split apart. He’s glad that there’s no one here to see him like this, a snivelling, pathetic beanpole swaddled in arms so warm and safe that he never wants the moment to end.

Kuroo pulls away first, and the air that cuts between them is so cold that he instantly steps back and they stand like that, chins on shoulders, a sight that Kei will never admit to taking place for as long as he has his dignity.

“Has anyone ever told you that you’re seriously emotionally challenged?” Kuroo asks thoughtfully, a teasing note to his voice so that Kei isn’t offended.

“I’ve heard that one before,” he admits with a little laugh.

Kuroo  _ hm _ -s and shifts the angle of his head so that he can press a quick kiss into the side of Kei’s neck, and it’s so fast and natural that Kei almost doesn’t flush in embarrassment - and delight. Almost.

“I’m still a little angry at you,” Kuroo whispers.

“How can I help?” Kei manages hesitantly.

“Oh, easy as pie,” Kuroo deadpans but a smile sneaks onto his face at the end of it, and Kei can feel it like a promise pressed up against his shoulder.

After a moment, Kuroo shuffles his feet and makes to pull back, “Wait, did you get that? I meant -”

“Shut up,” Kei sighs and leans back, tugging on Kuroo’s collar to bring him in for a kiss.

“I’ll buy you sodding cherry pie,” he mumbles, and Kuroo grins.

“How about a cat?” His predatory smile, Cheshire Cat smile, one of many that Kei has fallen a little bit in love with even though he never meant to.

“Don’t push it,” he warns, and closes his fingers around the back of Kuroo’s head, herding him towards the door of the cafe. Things have come full circle, he thinks to himself a little wonderingly. What began here is ending here, only it’s not  _ the  _ end. 

“So are we moving in together, then?” Kuroo calls over his shoulder, and Kei’s grip tightens on his neck. Kuroo’s hair is much softer than he’d thought - and he never thought he’d get to touch it. Kei wonders, absently, what else he will let him do.

“You’re getting ahead of yourself,” he responds, complaining, but he’s smiling. A bit. Kuroo spins around and catches him at it, and his smile magnifies, all bright teeth and darkness and hope.

“You didn’t say no,” he says, and opens the door.

“I didn’t say yes,” Kei counters, and he walks inside.

The hallway is welcomingly bright, just warm enough to banish the demons of frigid night from their skin, just cool enough that it’s the heat radiating off a second body as they walk towards the sound of cutlery that is most comforting.

Kuroo holds out his hand, and Kei takes it. His fingers are cold, but Kuroo’s are warm, and the brush of lips against his knuckles surprises a laugh out of him. Looking up at him from under his lashes, Kuroo smiles, “I’ve been wanting to do that for a while, now.”

“Sap,” Kei accuses, but the trials of daytime are melting off like icy air caught between the folds of his jacket, and his heart is full. 

  
He never thought it would feel like this, but he’s glad it does.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry it's taken me so long! I have no excuses for the delay.   
> the next chapter will be the last, I think, and I'm going to try and tie up all the loose ends!! thank you so much to everyone who's been reading this, and leaving me all the wonderful kudos and comments.  
> please feel free to point out anything that bothers you or is inconsistent; as they say, a fresh pair of eyes would be greatly appreciated.
> 
> let me know what you think!!


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